In the present-day business world, employee satisfaction has become one of the critical issues affecting its performance. It is commonly defined as a positive state of mind caused by employees’ realization of their commitment to the company making a valuable contribution to its success that goes in hand with achieving personal goals (Guillon & Cezanne, 2014). This indicator is predetermined by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors, including employees’ attitude towards their organization and its leaders, relationships with
colleagues, promotion prospects, workplace atmosphere, image, resources, training opportunities, security level, etc. (Shahzad, Khan, & Khan, 2015).
The main goal of the case study at hand is to investigate how numerous components of a job contribute to the overall job satisfaction (proposing to view it as a multidimensional phenomenon depending on various aspects of working conditions) and to prove that non-financial incentives in some cases may generate a stronger motivation, satisfaction, and commitment than financial compensations.
There are many job satisfaction theories; however, to analyze this case study, I will use four of them: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Hertzberg’s Two-Factor (Motivator-Hygiene) Theory, Equity Theory, and the Job Characteristics Theory.
The position that I have taken for the analysis is an assistant production coordinator in a local theater in a small town, N.
Behind the Scenes
The central drama theater of N. has been operating rather successfully in organizing and performing drama, opera, and ballet, as well as giving occasional orchestra concerts. However, due to the theater’s small size, its organizational and advertising managers have to perform a lot of extra work. Although these extra hours are not paid, the employees’ salaries are relatively standard and do not increase substantially with a higher position. Furthermore, despite relatively scarce financial benefits for average actors and managers, it must be admitted that there exist specific non-financial incentives and compensations for those who excel in their job.
However, since the town is small and employment opportunities are limited, people do not usually leave their jobs, and the turnover in the theater is low, which implies that promotion opportunities are relatively infrequent. As a result, when such an open position appears, they are quickly occupied by those who have good social networking skills and are more concerned with building connections than performing their duties properly. As a result, the organizational culture of the theater largely relies on social networking, and the leading positions are often inaccessible to those who do not have influential acquaintances. The structure is horizontal rather than hierarchical, and the relations with the superior or the inferior are common.
The Story
I worked in the theater for almost two years as an assistant production coordinator and felt satisfied with the salary that I received. Besides the financial aspect, I also really enjoyed my work responsibilities: The idea of making a contribution to the production of beautiful art pieces gave me a feeling of making a difference. In addition, I was rather creative at school and attended a drama club, so the sphere was quite familiar to me. I was quickly recognized by the director and the senior manager and was commissioned to organize important events.
However, what disappointed me much in this job was the HR policy of the theater, which was primarily based on networking and close relationship among staff members. Since I was an outsider from the theater world and did not have any relatives or friends working there, I quickly found out that my position as an outcast not only prevented me from organizing my schedule the way I wanted but also deprived me of promotion opportunities.
The first problem was connected with the two-mode system of theater operation. The point is that the workload is unequal during the on- and off-season periods. The first period covers months from January till the middle of June and is typically connected with a vast amount of activities the coordinator has to perform, organizing events and tours. When I had to travel to other towns, I was sometimes required to sacrifice up to three weekends per month in order to make sure that the performance occurs in due time and place. During the off-season, I was charged with very few tasks (usually connected with planning for a future season) but received the full salary. Yet, I soon noticed that senior staff, as well as people who have a lot of connections, do not spend in the theater more than several hours a week while I was required to attend even if I had nothing to do. Despite the fact that I had no salary cuts during the off-season, I felt that it was unfair to grant free time for nothing.
Another problem that led me to the decision to quit the job was that it was impossible to get promoted. Since I performed the best part of the job, when the production coordinator ceased, I hoped that I would be able to occupy his position. I was aware of all his responsibilities (and even took some of them upon myself), and no one in the theater could meet the requirements better than I did. However, to my surprise, the manager decided to appoint one of the former actors to do the job. Due to health problems, he could no longer participate in the performances but, since his entire family was in the business, was unwilling to leave for good. Thus, I was perplexed and upset to realize that achievements counted much lower than connections, even when the quality of the organizational process could suffer considerably as the man was far from professional in management issues. As a result, I stopped trying to go above and beyond my responsibilities as I knew that nothing could change the discriminative policy of the organization. The financial benefits that I received were not sufficient to make me stay.
The Theories
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Although the hierarchy of needs outlined by Maslow has been surpassed by more sophisticated theories of job satisfaction, it is still highly demonstrative in terms of contributing factors and the sequence of their appearance (Lăzăroiu, 2015). According to the model, there are five levels of human needs: physiological needs (water, food, shelter), safety (stability, freedom from fear for one’s life), belongingness (love, acceptance, affiliation), esteem (approval, respect, recognition of one’s achievements), and self-actualization (realization of one’s potential). The idea is simple: We need to satisfy our basic needs before more complex ones (Kaur, 2013). If we postulate this statement differently and apply it to the case, it will mean that after all primary needs are satisfied (the salary is appropriate, and the working conditions are acceptable), there appear needs for approval and self-actualization that financial benefits cannot satisfy.
Herzberg’s Two-Factor (Motivator-Hygiene) Theory
Herzberg’s Two-Factor (Motivator-Hygiene) Theory argues that job satisfaction is basically driven by only two factors–motivation (referring to the satisfaction of a subordinate) and hygiene (encompassing various aspects of the working environment). The basis is understood as the desire of an employee to pursue some organizational goals and to show will not only receive promotion and a higher salary but also achieve recognition and satisfaction with the task performed (Lăzăroiu, 2015). Motivation is considered to be the leading inner force of job satisfaction. On the contrary, hygiene is extrinsic and comprises all the outer aspects of work (salary, policies, leadership style, etc.). The author of the model argues that all individuals react identically to changes in the two factors and does not provide measurement criteria (Lacey, Kennett-Hensel, & Manolis, 2015). However, it is sufficient for the given case in order to understand how the absence of one factor cannot be balanced with an excessive presence of the other.
Equity Theory
Equity theory stems from the idea of fairness in social relationships at work. This implies that the employee identifies that amount of input and output from his/her relationship at work and compares the ratio to one of the other employees in order to understand whether their relationship is equitable. Therefore, job dissatisfaction is explained by the fact that the person feels that he/she gives more than other people but receives less (Dugguh & Dennis, 2014). In the case under consideration, it is clear that part of the distress of the working experience is caused by the fact that the feeling of equity could not be maintained.
Job Characteristics Theory
Hackman and Oldham, the authors of the theory, single out job conditions as the primary factor determining job satisfaction. They propose five essential job characteristics that every job should feature in order to bring the utmost satisfaction: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. The theory assesses job satisfaction using the following dimensions: salary, promotion prospects, supervision, and relationships among employees (Dugguh & Dennis, 2014). The situation is complicated by the fact that these dimensions have unequal importance to different people (e.g., some may value financial benefits higher than relationships or vice versa). The authors also indicate that people tend to compare current receivables from the job with expected receivables and feel dissatisfied if their expectations are higher (Lăzăroiu, 2015). This is precisely the case that we have to deal with in the present analysis.
Problem Statement
What we know about the situation is that job satisfaction was not impossible since a lot of aspects of the job were positive. What we need to understand is how and why non-financial aspects can outweigh numerous benefits. For this purpose, we should analyze the situation from the perspectives of all the four theories described above.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs helps us reveal the following characteristics (Kaur, 2013):
- physiological needs of the employee were fully satisfied, and the company offered a good salary;
- safety needs were satisfied since stability was also guaranteed (equal pays during off-seasons);
- belongingness was only partial as the employee did not feel acceptance despite active participation in organizational activities;
- esteem was not totally felt; yet, the employee’s achievements were recognized;
- self-actualization was hindered by external factors.
Thus, it is evident that problems begin at the third level, where the employee was satisfied enough to think about more complex issues. Indeed, despite the common belief that salary is in direct proportion to satisfaction (the higher the salary–the better you perform), different studies and surveys prove that the financial aspect is important only up the level where you receive as much as it is enough for the satisfaction of your basic needs and do not feel that you are short of money. When this boundary is crossed, you become more concerned with attitudinal, relationship, and self-perception issues (Guillon & Cezanne, 2014). The same idea is supported by the Job Characteristics Theory (Dugguh & Dennis, 2014). The employee valued relationship characteristics, supervision, and promotion prospects are higher than salary since the latter aspect was initially satisfactory.
Another aspect that we have to consider is that the employee showed a high level of motivation, which is the primary intrinsic force of satisfaction according to Herzberg’s Two-Factor (Motivator-Hygiene) Theory (Lăzăroiu, 2015). However, the problem was that total dissatisfaction with hygiene (namely, with HR policies and discrimination) could not be balanced with motivation only.
Equity theory is the one that explains the central part of the case. The employee would have been satisfied if everyone in the organization had been treated equally (e.g., they all had to stay in the workplace during the off-season) and received bonuses and promotion according to merits, not to personal relationships (one-sided promotion of the person who is not professional in the field) (Dugguh & Dennis, 2014).
Alternatives
The analysis of the situation gives the following alternative solutions:
- to talk to the leader of the organization and directly explain why you deserve a promotion, thereby restoring equity;
- to try to fit in and become a part of the organization not only in working issues but also on the ideological level for balancing motivation with hygiene;
- to engage in social networking and acquire necessary acquaintances to foster promotion for achieving satisfaction with such aspect as relationships;
- to quit the job (the option is chosen).
The most effective option was probably to resort to social networking, thereby improving not only the relationship aspect but also supervision and promotion prospects since the industry is structured in such a way that people having connections have the best range of options in everything. However, this option is impossible if you have moral objections to such kind of behavior and are unwilling to build relationships exclusively out of vested interests. That is why the opportunity to quit the job was the most suitable one as it did not require going against moral principles. Neither did it bring about disappointment, which would have been the result of talking to the manager and trying to obtain a position meant for the person with connections.
Conclusions
The primary thing I learned about the organization is that human relations can be the principal constituent of job satisfaction, and problems in this aspect may bring other benefits to naught. Although some theories of job satisfaction may help explain why this or that failure happens, they generally do not give answers to how to handle each particular case since there is no universal solution for all organizations. HR management is a highly complicated and multi-layer issue. Each company is a small closed world living in accordance with its internal laws. Even if you feel that something is unfair or unreasonable, the system is unlikely to change because of one employee’s dissatisfaction as any synergetic system is resistant to change. I would like to learn more about how to distinguish between the situations in which the system should be brought to its bifurcation point (by the total job dissatisfaction of employees) to get reorganized and the case in which the balance had better be preserved. This would allow creating effective strategies to address job satisfaction problems.
References
Dugguh, S. I., & Dennis, A. (2014). Job satisfaction theories: Traceability to employee performance in organizations. Journal of Business and Management, 16(5), 11-18.
Guillon, O., & Cezanne, C. (2014). Employee loyalty and organizational performance: A critical survey. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 27(5), 839-850.
Kaur, A. (2013). Maslow’s need hierarchy theory: Applications and criticisms. Global Journal of Management and Business Studies, 3(10), 1061-1064.
Lacey, R., Kennett-Hensel, P. A., & Manolis, C. (2015). Is corporate social responsibility a motivator or hygiene factor? Insights into its bivalent nature. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(3), 315-332.
Lăzăroiu, G. (2015). Employee Motivation and Job Performance. Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations, (14), 97-102.
Shahzad, S., Khan S., & Khan Z. (2015). Contributing factors of employee’s performance: A case study of local NGOs in Peshawar City. UTMS Journal of Economics, 6 (1), 127–134.