Attitudes and Job Satisfaction - Essay Example

Is a happy worker necessarily a productive worker? 21st century workplace is the most demanding and challenging both for the employers and employees.The employees need to be at their productive best in order to be successful in their organizations and personal career while the employers must be capable of extracting the complete potential of their workforce. This brings us to the question of how the employers can increase the productivity of their employers. Managers in every organization try to come up with new and innovative ways to increase the productivity of their workforce. There are various theories and models that have been proposed and developed over the years that are aimed at understanding the workforce and in turn try to come up with ways to increase productivity. One such theory or belief that has been around for a long time is that a happy worker is a more productive worker. In this essay I have addressed the issue of “Is a happy worker necessarily a productive worker?” I believe that a happy worker can be more productive than an unhappy worker but it can not be said with complete conviction that a happy worker has to be more productive. I will draw on theories of motivation, attitudes and job satisfaction in order to prove the above. Before going on to see if a happy worker is a productive worker, I will first try to put forward the concept of happiness. Happiness can not be well defined in a systematic way. It involves a number of variables. Happiness at workplace is a combined effect of numerous factors such as quality of life at work, job satisfaction, employee attitude, overall life satisfaction, negative effects, positive effects, socialization, etc (Zelenski et al., 2008). Two main aspects that contribute to happiness at a work place are employee attitude and job satisfaction. Employees have their own views on various aspects of their work, their personal career and on the organization as a whole. These viewpoints are affected by various factors and make up the attitudes of the employees at the workplace. Job satisfaction on the other hand is also an attitude but is the most focal of all the attitudes (Saari & Judge, 2004). Job Satisfaction is best described by Locke (1976; p1304) as “a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences.” But most important aspect here is that job satisfaction is not completely responsible for happiness as it is not just related to the events at the workplace. Life satisfaction which involves the employee’s personal life also contributes to happiness and in fact plays a bigger role than job satisfaction. Now, returning to the purpose of this essay. Different employees have different needs and each one of them measure happiness using different parameters. In the following paragraphs I will introduce numerous theories and studies put forward by experts in the field that have contributed towards proving that happy workers might not necessarily be a more productive. Maslow’s Theory of hierarchy of needs According to Maslow’s theory of hierarchy of needs human behavior is determined by the progression of individual internal needs. He categorized the need hierarchically as physiological, safety and security, social, esteem and self actualization. According to him, an individual will first try to fulfill his basic needs as food, shelter, etc and then move on the higher level needs. According to this theory there is no connection between human behavior and happiness until the lower level needs are fulfilled. If a stage is not fulfilled then the individual is motivated to fulfill this stage before going to the next one (Nelson & Quick, 2007). Same can be applied to an organization. An employee in an organization is motivated by his manager to fulfill uncompleted stages. The manager can motivate the employee by offering rewards or other benefits such as promotions. Each employee will be motivated by different means and this necessarily is to fulfill their needs rather than attaining happiness. There can not be a connection created between happiness and productivity. Theory X and Y McGregor proposed his theory X and Y in the 1957 according to which the productivity of the employees depend on the how the management views its workforce. According to him, there are two approaches to managing employees in an organization. Theory X: This is a democratic style where the management believes that the employees are lazy, lack ambition, avoid work, motivated by money and need to be managed. The employees are pushed by the management in the form of rewards or punishments in order to get the work done (Jennifer & Jones, 2009). Theory Y: This is more an autocratic style where employees are self motivated, seek responsibility, are committed and do not need punishment or external control. In this case, management creates opportunities and challenges for the employees as motivation (Jennifer & Jones, 2009). This proves that the productivity is dependent more on how the management manages and motivates its employees rather than employee satisfaction. Even though an employee is satisfied and happy, he might not be at his productive best as the management style does not suite. So, it can be said that motivation plays a much bigger role than happiness in productivity. Hawthorne studies and other researches There are numerous researches conducted to identify the relation between job satisfaction and productivity but none have been able to come with strong evidence between the two. The Hawthorne studies were the first researches that were mainly targeted at finding the relation between the employee attitude/ job satisfaction and overall efficiency and productivity. Following the Hawthorne studies, numerous experiments have been conducted by many such as study by Hoppock in 1935 and many more 20th century researchers have addressed the issue but none have been able to come up with solid evidence of relation between job satisfaction and productivity (Frazier, 2005). Brayfield and Crockett in 1955 suggested that there is no evidence that relates job satisfaction to higher productivity or performance. This was again confirmed by Vroom in 1964 (Pratt & Bennett, 1989). Some of the researches from 1985 suggested that the relation between productivity and job satisfaction was 0.17 (Iaffaldano, & Muchinsky, 1985). Life Satisfaction and Job Satisfaction This is an important factor that has attracted many researchers in the recent years. Life satisfaction and job satisfaction are correlated. An employee might be satisfied with his job but dissatisfaction with his personal life can spillover into the professional life and hence affect the productivity of the employee. The other way round also holds true. Another possibility is that the individual might not let one to affect the other. In this case as both are independent of the other there can be any relation between the two. Third possibility is that an individual might try to compensate for the shortcomings in life satisfaction with that of job satisfaction. In all these three possibilities what could be noted is that happiness and in turn job satisfaction plays a secondary role. The individual can inspire himself to increase productivity irrespective of satisfied or not (Saari & Judge, 2004). New researcher has now shown that job satisfaction is not as important and correlated life satisfaction as many other non job variables. And an employees satisfied with his job but not satisfied with his life will be less productive when compared to his counterparts (Kumar, 2001). Individual personality Individual personality plays an important role in the behavior of an employee. Each employee is unique and has an individual personality that is different the other. It is individual personality of an individual that determines how an individual will react to situations at the workplace. Therefore, it is the individual personality of an employee that makes an impact on the performance and job satisfaction of the employee. An individual with a positive attitude will react in a positive way to an adverse reaction and ensure high levels of productivity whereas an individual with negative attitude tends to get affected by the situation resulting to low productivity levels irrespective of the happy/satisfied or not. Employee Satisfaction and Vice versa The belief is that employee satisfaction leads to higher productivity. But the vice versa also can be true. Employees can be happier with their job when the productivity is high. They can be satisfied with the job because they are fulfilling their complete potential. Also results have shown that where there are more rewards, performance is better. But some argue that rewards are more because of higher levels of performance. Hence, it can not be said that a happy worker is necessarily a productive worker (Martin & Hetrick, 2006). Therefore, a happy worker can be a productive worker but it is not a necessity that a happy worker will always be more productive than an unhappy worker. There isn’t any evidence that suggests that a happy worker is always a productive worker. There are numerous factors that influence the productivity of an employee. The motivations, individual personality, management of an organization, life satisfaction, etc that affect the productivity of an employee. I conclude this essay by saying “Is a happy worker necessarily a productive worker?” References Frazier, D.P. (2005). Job satisfaction of international educators. FL: Universal-Publishers. Iaffaldano, M. R., & Muchinsky, P. M. (1985). Job satisfaction and job performance: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 251–273. Jennifer, G. & Jones, G.R. (2009). Understanding and Managing Organizational Behavior. New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley Pvt Ltd. Kumar, D. (2010). Enterprise Growth Strategy: Vision, Planning and Execution. VT: Ashgate Publishing Company. Locke, E. A. (1976). The nature and causes of job satisfaction. In M. D. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 1297–1349). Chicago: Rand McNally Martin, G. & Hetrick, S. (2006). Corporate reputations, branding and people management: a strategic approach to HR. MA: Butterworth-Heinemann. Nelson, D.L. & Quick, J.L. (2007). Understanding Organizational Behavior. OH: Thomson Higher Education. Pratt, K.J. & Bennett, S.G. (1989). Elements of personnel management. London: Taylor & Francis. Saari, L.M. & Judge, T.A. (2004). Employee Attitudes and Job Satisfaction. Human Resource Management, 43(4), p. 395–407. Zelenski, J.M., Murphy, S.A. & Jenkins, D.A. (2008). The Happy-Productive Worker Thesis Revisited. J Happiness Stud. 9. p 521-537. Read More