Construct Development and Scale Creation
This research focused on the construction of Job Satisfaction in workplace. Job satisfaction in workplace has been a very critical aspect in defining the productivity of any company or organization. To be precise, the performance of the employees within the organization has a close linkage to job satisfaction.
Job satisfaction has much to do with the attitude the workers have toward their jobs. This will determine if there are positive or negative instincts or extinct in the nature of the job performed (Taber, & Alliger, 1995).
According to Slater, O’Halloran, Connelly, and McCormack (2010), individuals with the desire and urge to keep on working perform better in the organization compared to the unwilling workers. In addition, the quality of work delivered by the satisfied individuals has been very high as well as consistence in service delivery to the company.
Therefore, this study could be very significant in many companies looking forward to elevate the working morale of their workers. This will in return increase job satisfaction in the companies through catering for the individuals’ welfare in various aspects of life (Slater, O’Halloran, Connelly, & McCormack, 2010).
According to Alam and Mohammad (2010), job satisfaction falls under six different facets in the organization. These are “satisfaction with supervisor, satisfaction with variety, satisfaction with closure, satisfaction with compensation, satisfaction with co-workers, and Satisfaction with management and HR policies” (p. 125).
However, these facets may vary from one individual to another in determining the satisfaction in job. Workers will be satisfied with some of these aspects, for instance, good relation with the supervisor, good salary, but aspects of the work become a barrier to full job satisfaction.
When job satisfaction in the workplace deteriorates, workers are left with many options triggered by this dissatisfaction. Among these options could be a change in the nature of job, quitting the current job, or remaining in the same job but with less morale (Johnson & Johnson, 2000).
This in return dictates the productivity of the organizations. Organizational Research has revealed that the attitudes developed among the workers has much to with payment, coworkers, company policies, and supervisors among other (Johnson & Johnson, 2000).
Low job satisfaction, deterioration of management, and failure to offer adequate support to worker are the symptoms likely to make workers leave their jobs. Sometimes they can ignore their duties or offer poor job qualities (Firth, Mellor, Moore, & Loquet, 2004).
Items used in domains sampling
- Directives in the organization
- Organizational ethics
- Clarity in the roles of the employees
- Available resource in the organization
- Processes in the organization
Instrument used
Likert scale model has been useful in this case as revealed in many literatures. As a result, researchers have built other models and scales based on this model (Rust, & Wallace, 2004). However, the nature, and the implementation of other scales may have different applications but the format remains the same.
The format related to the Likert scale is a five-point scale used in determining the responses given by respondents through questions directed to them for testing.
The responses among respondents differ at a various level of agreement in which this may range from high level of agreement to level of disagreement. This is what is captured in these five scales termed “strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, and strongly agree” (Langford, 2009, p. 1).
This study used the Voice Climate Survey instrument as widely used in Australia (Langford, 2009). To capture the results collected in the study, this instrument presents a smaller version of the results.
In that regard, interview using a guided questionnaire was preferable. Voice Climate Survey is applicable at the organizational, individual team, project, and companies levels to offer subsequent improvement.
Analysis and Justification
The use of voice climate surveys is widely applicable at different organizational levels in the quest to bring improvement in organization. However, the required improvement is not achievable without involving the employee’s inputs.
Therefore, job satisfaction is a major factor that requires an in-depth research to discover the related issues to productivity. As a result, this instrument affiliation to the Likert scale could be the best instrument to carry out this task. There are many reasons this instrument can deliver the required results as shown below.
Reasons the voice climate survey fits this study
- It can identify and benchmark the engagement of the workers in the workplace as well as spotting the factors that can enhance this engagement.
- It can offer the deployment measures before and after development initiatives within the organization through the measurement of their effectiveness to the organization.
- It can also help in identifying the earnings, safety, and authorized risks for both teams and individuals.
In addition, this instrument has features that have been very instrumental in research on constructing developments in work places. This will offer the best practices in work places through the results gathered. These include
- The methodology used in this instrument emanates developments and maintenance using an ongoing research in large organizations.
- The survey used is in a specific standard to fit in specific situations in workplace.
- The instrument is very flexible because the survey can focus on a specific management practice.
- This instrument is applicable at different platforms, such as on papers, websites, or in both platforms.
- Last, the results achieved can offer a benchmark using the available database with information from organizations and their employees.
Surveys are very significant in this study because of three important aspects, namely, assessment, benchmarking, and consultation. These aspects will offer the preferred performance, a comparative study against other organizations, and most important, allowing the employees participation through their “voice”
This study will require both the interviews and surveys among various respondents collected from various levels of management and organizations. This will offer the required results to determine job satisfaction. The nature of this study requires few respondents sampled from different organizations.
Participants
The instrument will have a total of 40 participants in which they would be the interviewed on various questions concerning their organizations to measure the level of satisfaction. This is would be a manageable number to interview based on the availability of many organizations at different level. In addition, time constraint, and financial constraint may discourage interviewing of many respondents.
Characteristics of respondents
Apart from the financial and the time constraints, the survey could deeply evaluate some factors that the respondents should exhibit to qualify for this study.
Age
Difference in age could be a factor affiliated to satisfaction in workplace in the midst of the employees. Elderly people may have witnessed many activities related to job contentment among employees compared to the young people.
Historical background of organization may contribute to the relationship between the workers and the management team. Therefore, elderly people could have more information concerning the topic of study hence more elderly people than the youths should present in this study to give their opinions.
Work experience
Workplace experience can be a better platform to judge the factors contributing to job satisfaction. Therefore, the longer a worker has worked in an organization, the better for measuring the level of satisfaction. However, changes in working conditions and management teams may yield mixed results on the level of satisfaction in workplace (Boles, Wood, & Johnson, 2003).
Gender
Men and women employees have different perspectives in workplace that contribute to job satisfaction. For instance, men can easily relate very well with their male counterparts in workplace compared to women. They are very collaborative, and they can settle their disputes among themselves and the management to forge ahead whenever problems occur. As a result, men may serve longer in the workplace experiencing job satisfaction (Barrett, 2009).
Literacy of the respondents
The survey, and the interview will involve a guided questionnaires that the respondents should be able to read, understand, and answer the questions accordingly. Therefore, the respondents targeted by this study should be able to read and write.
Instrument generalization
Voice climate survey is an instrument widely used by researcher in work places to determine the organizational activities and their effects to the workers. This will be of much benefit to the employees because of the opportunities to air their grievances and suggestion to the management for better working environment.
This instrument will therefore target the working group at different levels to determine their satisfaction in their jobs as well as speaking out their suggestions to elevate the level of satisfaction.
Validity of the instrument used
Use of voice climate survey has been widely used in the Australian organizations, and it has been happening continuously. It is the use of Likert scale together in this instrument that makes it more effective and significant in this study. Moreover, this instrument uses many tools that make it stronger in studying this topic. These tools are applicable in assessment, benchmarking, and consultations.
Benchmarking present the best evaluation method to determine job satisfaction in this study (Taber, & Alliger, 1995). This will include comparison of responses from various organizations to determine how employees treatment in workplace and the results of the productivity in the organizations.
Data collected using this instrument has different aspects in the workplace. Some of the aspects testable using the Likert scale would be; turn over, absenteeism, productivity, health, and safety, good attainment, and financial performance among the employees. These are measurable factors using this instrument. More so, it is a belief that employees have different perceptions on these factors.
The existence of the working culture and organizational culture has been a concern to many employees. The difference has contributed to low outputs and reduction of morale among the employees.
Therefore, depending on the response given by the employees, each of the five different scales is measurable in different degrees of agreement. As a result, the voice climate Survey could be the most preferred and valid instrument to understand job satisfaction (Langford, 2009).
References
Alam, M.M., & Mohammad, J. F. (2010). Level of job satisfaction and intent to leave among Malaysian nurses. Business Intelligence Journal, 3(1), 123-137.
Barrett, M. (2009). Do Australian women and men differ in workplace engagement? Eighth Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference, Sydney, New South Wales.
Boles, J.S., Wood, J.A., & Johnson, J. (2003). Interrelationships of role conflict, role ambiguity and work family conflict with different facets of job satisfaction and the moderating effects of gender. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 23(2), 99-113.
Firth, L., Mellor, J., Moore, A., & Loquet, C. (2004). How can managers reduce employee intention to quit? Journal of Managerial Psychology, 19(2), 170-187.
Johnson, G.J., & Johnson, W.R. (2000).Perceived over qualification, positive and negative affectivity, and satisfaction with work. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 15(2), 167-185.
Langford, P.H. (2009) Measuring organizational climate and employee engagement: Evidence for a seven Ps model of work practices and outcomes. Australian Journal of Psychology, 61(4), 185-198.
Rust, J.O., & Wallace, M.A. (2004). Test Review. Journal of Psycho educational Assessment, 22, 367-373.
Slater, P., O’Halloran, P., Connelly, D., and McCormack, B., (2010), Testing of the factor structure of the nursing work index-revised. Worldviews evidence based nursing, 7(3), 123-134.
Taber, T.D., & Alliger, G.M. (1995). A task level assessment of job satisfaction. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 16(2), 101-21.