Chapter 4
May-28-13

11:44 AM

Job Satisfaction:
• Job satisfaction: pleasureable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences -- how you feel about your job and what you think about your job
• Employees with high job satisfaction experience positive feelings when they think about their duties or take part in task activities
• Employees with low job satisfaction experience negative feelings when they think about their duties or take part in their task activities
• 81% canadians are happy and satisfied with their jobs and like the people the work with (88%)
• Money isn't the only factor with job satisfaction but also corporate culture, the opportunity to use skills, the opportunity to learn and the ability to be creative
• Financial rewards and benefits, flexible work hours and stress were among the least-cited reasons for job satisfaction Why Are Some Employees More Satisfied Than Others?
• Employees are satisfied when their job provides the things they value
• Values: things that people consciously or unconsciously want to seek or attain

• Different people value different things and that your values may change during the course of your working life
Value Fulfillment
• Values play a key role in explaining how satisfied or dissatisfied we feel about our jobs
• Value-percept theory: a theory that argues that job satisfaction depends on whether you perceive that your job supplies the things that you value
•
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Where Vwant reflects how much of a value an employee wants
Vhave indicates how much pf that value the job supplies
Vimportance reflects how important the value is to an employee
Multiplied because existing discrepancies get magnified for important values and minimized for trivial values
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trivial values
• Value percept theory suggest that people evaluate job satisfaction according to specific facets of the job

• Pay satisfaction: refers to employees' feelings about their pay, including whether it is as much as they deserve, secure, and adequate for both normal expenses and luxury items
○ This is based on comparison of the pay that employees want and they pay they receive
• Promotion Satisfaction: employees' feelings about the company's promotion policies and their execution, including whether promotions are frequent, fair, and based on ability
○ Some might not want frequent promotions because increases responsibility and work hours
○ Some value because allow personal growth, better wage and more pretige
• Supervision satisfaction: employee's feelings about their boss, including his or her competency, communication and persaonlity
○ Two question asked in regards:
 Can they help me attain the things that I value?
 Are they generally likeable?
○ First question depends on whether supervisors provide rewards for good performance , help employees obtain necessary resources and protect employees from unnecessary distractions
○ Second question depends on whether supervisors have good personalities, values and beliefs
• Co-worker satisfaction: employee's feelings about their co-workers, including their abilities and personalities ○ Two questions about their co-workers:
 Can they help me do my job?
 Do I enjoy being around them?
○ Zappos recognizes their co-workers' achievements with $50 bonus -- policy focuses on positive qualities of others
• Satisfaction with the work itself: employee's feelings about their actual work tasks
○ Are the tasks challenging, interesting, respected and make use of key skills rather than being dull, repetitive and uncomfortable
• Value percept theory suggests that employees will be satisfied when the perceive that their job offers the pay, promotions, supervision, co-workers and work tasks that they value
• Which is most important? Chart shown below:

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• Three critical psychological states make work satisfying:
○ Meaningfulness of work: psychological state indicating the degree to which work tasks are viewed as something