Introduction
There is a range of factors that impact the quality of services and products that are provided all over the world, and employee satisfaction can be listed among them as it often defines employees’ work-related performance. Employee satisfaction or work satisfaction and the ways to improve it present one of the most important concerns for company managers and human resources specialists from different countries. The methods, helping to increase job satisfaction levels are often seen as the best way to reduce the manifestation of withdrawal behavior among specialists on different organizational levels. Due to this hypothesis, it is possible to call the interconnection between employee satisfaction and various forms of job withdrawal the key research question in the field of human resources.
Discussing the importance of the stated topic, it is pivotal to note that thorough research on the relationship between employee satisfaction and the key forms of withdrawal behavior would demonstrate practical significance. Studying the topic of job withdrawal in the context of employee satisfaction, it is possible to understand which measures can be taken by managers to improve employee satisfaction in different countries of the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates is ranked among the wealthiest countries in the world, and the country’s government has introduced a lot of decisions such as the establishment of the Ministry of Happiness that is aimed at improving people’s well-being. Despite that, Emirati firms still do not have a strategy that would allow increasing average employee satisfaction levels and, possibly, reducing withdrawal behaviors. The present work summarizes the most recent findings related to the impact of employee satisfaction on various forms of withdrawal and factors that impact employee satisfaction rates in the United Arab Emirates in order to make a positive contribution to the present state of knowledge and provide recommendations that Emirati employers can use.
The given work focuses on the relationship between job satisfaction and the key forms of withdrawal behavior such as unjustified absences, lateness, and the intention to quit an organization. Apart from that, it touches upon the factors that impact the average employee satisfaction levels in the United Arab Emirates. The particular aspects of the topic were chosen because these forms of withdrawal have been studied by previous researchers. Job withdrawal can be defined as a set of reactions to workplace situations that contradict norms that are accepted by the management of a company or pose a threat to the company’s social image and reputation among clients. Job withdrawal is ranked among the most popular issues related to human resources, and it can take various forms that are different in terms of the extent to which they are detrimental to companies’ success.
Literature Review
Job Satisfaction, Absenteeism, and Tardiness
Absenteeism and tardiness can be listed among the key forms of workplace withdrawal behavior. Nowadays, many researchers are interested in the effects of absenteeism on the further professional development of a specialist, factors that encourage employees to become less responsible when it comes to their duties, and ways to reduce or prevent absenteeism among employees in different fields of activity. Absenteeism is often regarded as one of the most conspicuous indicators of poor work-related performance. Absenteeism rates depend upon numerous factors that include social groups to which employees belong, the length of the working day, the wage rates, and the impact that certain work has on physical and mental health in a long-term perspective. The level of job satisfaction among employees is strictly interconnected with absenteeism rates, and the conclusions of numerous researchers support this hypothesis.
Tardiness belongs to the number of concepts that have not been thoroughly studied yet, and it is difficult to make a firm conclusion concerning its connection to employee satisfaction. The article by Smith, Micich, and McWilliams (2016) suggests that tardiness and employee satisfaction are interrelated because the latter is impacted by organizational citizenship behavior that reduces tardiness rates. Employees who demonstrate OCB and are willing to do extra work are more likely to have high levels of employee satisfaction, and it reduces the number of cases when they are late for work. At the same time, unlike other forms of withdrawal from work that are widely discussed, tardiness can also be caused by changing living circumstances, new non-work related duties, and bad physical condition. In its turn, the presence of these factors does not mean that a person is dissatisfied with the working environment or dislikes his or her colleagues.
When it comes to the question concerning the connection between employee satisfaction and the forms of withdrawal behavior such as absenteeism, modern researchers use different perspectives to approach the issue and provide practically significant results. In their research, Schaumberg and Flynn (2017) study the connection between absenteeism and employee satisfaction, paying focused attention to the impact of guilt-proneness. It is known that people who demonstrate guilt-proneness are extremely sensitive and conscious of possible negative consequences of their actions for other people. Understanding that the inability to do their best at work results in problems for specialists from other departments, employees that are high in guilt-proneness are more likely to recruit their willpower and overcome their bodily fatigue, the effects of emotional burnout, and other difficulties to avoid causing problems to their colleagues and immediate superiors. The authors of the research under consideration regard the degree of guilt-proneness as a primary factor related to the link between employee satisfaction and absenteeism.
According to their hypothesis, the probability of absenteeism behavior among employees depends on the level of employee satisfaction and the extent to which they are prone to the feeling of guilt. The researchers suppose that guilt-proneness can be used to better understand the connection between these two variables, absenteeism behavior and the level of employee satisfaction. It is due to the fact that a sense of guilt is among the factors that “regulate one’s self-interest” and help individuals to sort out priorities when their goals are opposite to those of their companies (Schaumberg & Flynn, 2017, p. 2). Having reviewed the findings of previous researchers in the field, Schaumberg and Flynn (2007) state that proper attendance behavior (a lack of unjustified absences at work) is strictly interconnected with the extent to which an employee enjoys his or her work. In other words, employee satisfaction has an important impact on absenteeism, but it cannot be called the only factor that predicts an approximate number of unjustified absences.
Apart from the role of the level of job satisfaction, modern researchers acknowledge the fact that absenteeism is highly impacted by corporate culture and the type of organization (Zimmerman, Swider, Woo, & Allen, 2016). Thus, employees who do not demonstrate high levels of job satisfaction are less likely to have unjustified absence in case their teams’ structures are highly formalized and duties are segregated, and this is why the level of interoperability of roles is not high. In addition, employees’ tendency to have unjustified absences can be decreased if managers encourage all specialists to comply with strict attendance norms. In some cases, it can also be pivotal to use certain team-building exercises in order to increase group cohesion. Due to such practices, employees better understand that any working group has numerous similarities with such a system as an organism. Therefore, the unwillingness of at least one group member to take responsibility for his or her own actions may significantly decrease the productivity of an entire team. Focusing on the role of guilt-proneness, Schaumberg, and Flynn (2017) prove that it defines the degree to which job satisfaction predicts absenteeism. In particular, the results of their experiments indicate that the connection between absenteeism from work and employee satisfaction is related to the degree to which employees are ready to go against their own interests in order to demonstrate expected behavior.
Analyzing the connection between job satisfaction and absenteeism, modern researchers attempt at defining the real nature of employee satisfaction. As is clear from the most recent studies on the topic, employee satisfaction is not ranked among the concepts of homogeneous nature that do not have their own inner structure. In their quantitative study on the topic of absenteeism, Diestel, Wegge, and Schmidt (2014) single out two dimensions of employee satisfaction: external and internal. The so-called “externally-focused satisfaction” that relates to the conditions of work and working environment in an organization in general. As for the “internally-focused satisfaction”, this term is introduced to define the extent to which employees are satisfied with their work in a team, and this term is less specific than the previous one. In their study, the researchers attempt to define the connection that exists between both types of employee satisfaction and the probability of absenteeism. According to the hypothesis advanced by the researchers, higher levels of both external and internal employee satisfaction can decrease absenteeism rates in organizations, and the relationship between these variables is highly impacted by the social factor.
In addition, the researchers suppose that employees at different levels of the organizational structures of their companies are likely to evaluate their attitude to work (including unjustified absences and other types of withdrawal behavior) based on the expectations of their working groups and behavioral stereotypes that they notice when communicating with their colleagues. In their research, the authors devote attention to the problem of absenteeism in connection with social factors and interactions between group members. The study by Diestel et al. (2014) also indicates that the tendency to perceive unjustified absence as something that is not detrimental to the job performance of their teams usually develops in employees who dislike their immediate supervisors and colleagues due to different reasons. As a result of this dissatisfaction, such employees do not associate themselves with their teams and it has an impact on their perceptions of the consequences of their unjustified absences. When employees’ relationships with other people at work involve misunderstanding and even conflicts that significantly reduce job satisfaction levels, employees often see absence with no good reason not as a threat to their companies’ success. Instead, they consider absenteeism to be an appropriate alternative that allows them to strike the right balance and react to events and attitudes they find unjust. To put it in other words, absenteeism can be ranked among ego defense mechanisms that are used by employees who are dissatisfied with working conditions, relationships between the members of their teams, and their immediate superiors’ attitude to them.
The role of self-efficacy in absenteeism rates has also been studied by modern researchers in the field of psychology and human resources. In their study, Borgogni, Russo, Miraglia, and Vecchione (2013) prove that insufficient job satisfaction rates cause absenteeism, and the former highly depends upon employees’ self-efficacy. The study under consideration demonstrates that increased self-efficacy rates have a positive impact on overall job satisfaction and, therefore, reduce the frequency of unjustified absences.
In conclusion, the previous findings concerning the connection between absenteeism and employee satisfaction are not antagonistic. All researchers acknowledge the fact that high absenteeism rates can be a result of low levels of job satisfaction (both internal and external). At the same time, the relationship between these concepts varies in accordance with the level of guilt-proneness of employees and the degree to which they associate themselves with their teams. Also, the impact of work-related conflicts, weak connections between team members, and low self-efficacy of employees can be considered to develop recommendations for Emirati employers, helping them to increase employee satisfaction rates and, therefore, avoid numerous cases of withdrawal behavior.
Turnover Intentions and Employee Satisfaction
Turnover intention can be numbered among the forms of job withdrawal that have far-reaching consequences for all levels of organizational structures. Nowadays, it is believed that the intention to quit can have both positive and negative impact on organizations and management teams as leaving employees to create new opportunities for talented specialists who can help companies to achieve success and, importantly, are ready to work at full capacity due to growing competition and their own ambitions. The impact of job satisfaction rates on turnover intentions of employees has been studied in many countries with different levels of economic development.
The article by Bouckenooghe, Raja, and Butt (2013) is devoted to the impact of employee satisfaction on performance levels of clerical personnel and plant workers in Pakistan and their turnover intentions. In order to provide theoretical foundations to support their hypothesis concerning the moderating effect that high job satisfaction rates have on turnover behavior, the researchers refer to the theory of trait activation that was developed seventeen years ago. Turnover is listed among the key challenges for large organizations in Pakistan and other countries, and the changing expectations of clients in different spheres make the harm produced by this problem even more significant. To study the mechanism that encourages employees to make the decision to leave their organizations, many turnover models have been developed by famous theorists. Some of these models propose a perspective according to which increased turnover is a result of weak organizational links between colleagues or between employees and their immediate superiors. At the same time, there are a number of models that focus on the unique role of employee satisfaction as a factor that can impact turnover intentions. The study by Bouckenooghe et al. (2013) makes an attempt to analyze the connection between these two variables, paying special attention to the impact of employees’ disposition to experience either positive or negative emotions at work. Many researchers believe that job satisfaction, the degree to which employees see their work environment as positive, needs to be the key focus of strategies that aim at decreasing employee turnover rates all over the world. Also, the great role of employee satisfaction is supported by numerous researchers who believe that it facilitates job performance and, therefore, acts as the primary component of work-related success.
Positive and negative affectivity are listed among the most important factors that can predict the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intentions. The proneness to focus on negative emotions that employees in different types of organizations demonstrate often prevents them from being satisfied with their work environment and the relationships with colleagues and immediate superiors. People with negative affectivity are likely to be sensitive to conflicts and emphasize their importance, taking positive events and situations at work for granted. As a result, their positive perceptions of colleagues, managers, duties, and working processes in general are extremely fragile as their attention is always focused on negative events.
Therefore, people who demonstrate negative affectivity are more susceptible to work-related stress and their level of job satisfaction is lower than that of people who have high degrees of positive affect. The presence of positive and negative affect has a significant influence on employee satisfaction, and the great role of personality traits in job satisfaction is manifested in different situations. For instance, it often happens that colleagues who have the same immediate superior, the level of experience and fulfill similar or identical tasks are of mixed opinions concerning the appropriateness of their work environment, the impact of the relationships with their colleagues, and similar factors. Considering the influence of negative and positive effects on job satisfaction, these factors also predict turnover rates. Due to that, it is accepted that personality traits should be taken into account during job interviews.
The most recent research on the impact of employee satisfaction on turnover rates shows that the question of discrimination needs to be studied more thoroughly in relation to the problem under consideration. Among the key factors that decrease satisfaction rates and, therefore, contribute to the growth of employee turnover in different spheres, there is age discrimination against people nearing retirement age.
Griffin, Bayl-Smith, and Hesketh (2016) believe that the problem of age discrimination and its contribution to job satisfaction and turnover rates is underestimated and requires additional research to minimize negative consequences of population aging all over the world. Taking into account that the average number of employees who belong to this age group continues to grow, it is pivotal for large companies to introduce additional measures to retain older employees who have enough experience to deal with difficult work-related situations. Despite that, the presence of age discrimination is still reported by numerous employees. It can be manifested in younger employees’ unwillingness to communicate with their older colleagues, the insufficiency of resources that are used to improve working conditions for older specialists or being underestimated due to age. Higher levels of perceived age discrimination, the researchers prove, contribute to low job satisfaction. In their turn, the latter acts as a predictor of high turnover intention among employees nearing retirement age.
In the end, it is accepted that low satisfaction rates do not only encourage employees to become less responsible when they fulfill their duties but also play an important part in the decision-making process concerning possible resignation (Mitchell, Burch, & Lee, 2014). Apart from the link between these variables, modern researchers suppose that affectivity and even time belong to the number of factors that impact the relationship between these factors. Also, employee satisfaction can be impacted by “ageism” at work or age discrimination against employees nearing pension age. These findings can also be used to improve employee satisfaction rates in the United Arab Emirates.
Employee Satisfaction in the United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates is ranked among the wealthiest countries in the world. This fact has a major influence on average employee satisfaction levels in the country. Nevertheless, based on the findings that relate to employees in different counties, it is possible to design recommendations for Emirati firms on how to make employees more satisfied.
The research by Naqbi, Hamidi, Younis, and Rivers (2014) shows that the level of job satisfaction in the UAE highly depends on the quality of training for employees. Apart from that, many employees report that they would like to have more career development opportunities. In addition, it is supposed that HR regulation awareness has a major influence on employee satisfaction, and Emirati employers may need to increase it. Another critical factor that is known to cause employee dissatisfaction in the UAE is a lack of just promotion opportunities; it is especially important to consider this question in relation to female employees whose talents are often underrated. Employers in the UAE should pay more attention to conducting research to identify the real training needs of their subordinates.
The choice of leadership style can also impact job satisfaction in Emirati firms. In their study, Hijazi, Kasim, and Daud (2017) prove that the use of the transformational leadership model in educational institutions in the UAE increases job satisfaction levels. Emirati employers can use these findings to develop a new strategy that would help them to pay personal attention to subordinates’ needs and encourage them to be more creative. Considering that the country is an example of a collectivistic culture with strong religious values, it can be important for Emirati employers to create the unique vision of an individualized approach that would align with the key values of the nation.
Conclusion
In conclusion, job withdrawal is manifested in a range of behaviors such as the tendency to engage in conflicts due to occupational burnout, low morale, a lack of motivation to contribute to the success of a company, irresponsible attitude to one’s duties, laziness, mental block, and absenteeism. The given review focused on the impact that employee satisfaction has on lateness, unjustified absences, and the intention to quit. Apart from that, the ways to improve employee satisfaction in the United Arab Emirates were reviewed.
The findings reported by the previous researchers indicate that job satisfaction has a significant impact on absenteeism, and it has been proved that the degree to which satisfaction level defines this form of withdrawal behavior depends upon the level of guilt-proneness of an employee. In addition, absenteeism rates can be impacted by the presence of strong cultural values and the extent to which employees associate themselves with their teams. These two factors also have an influence on satisfaction rates, and it also justifies the connection between satisfaction and absenteeism. When it comes to tardiness, it is not necessarily caused by low satisfaction levels as there are other reasons such as changing life circumstances and health issues. Despite that, it is known that tardiness and job satisfaction are interrelated because the latter is impacted by organizational citizenship behavior that decreases tardiness rates.
In reference to turnover intention, it needs to be said that modern researchers confirm the strong connection of this factor with satisfaction rates. The relationship between these two variables, modern researchers prove, is impacted by positive and negative affectivity and other personal characteristics of employees. To continue, it is known that employers’ and colleagues’ unfair attitude to specialists of pre-retirement age negatively impacts job satisfaction rates of the latter and, therefore, contributes to increased employee turnover.
Based on the key findings of the review, Emirati employers can improve job satisfaction rates, providing more career development and training opportunities to employees. Also, a lack of just promotion opportunities must be addressed. The impact of the key leadership style used in Emirati organizations on job satisfaction rates is also discussed by the authors whose works are included in the review. Therefore, among other evidence-based recommendations is the use of the model of transformational leadership that involves paying more attention to employee’s individual needs and fostering creativity in them. Many employees in the United Arab Emirates demonstrate a lack of HR regulation awareness, and this problem should be addressed in order to improve average employee satisfaction rates. What is more, as it follows from the findings that can be used in any culture, any discrimination against specialists of pre-retirement age should be excluded.
References
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