Low Job Satisfaction at Disney - Case Study Example

Low Job Satisfaction at Disney Introduction The Walt Disney Travel Company can be said to have its humble beginnings in 1923 as Walt Disney Brothers Studio. It was established and owned by Walt Disney who passed on in 1966. Its first release was in 1928 when the famous Mickey Mouse cartoons came into being. (Watt, 2013). Since then, the Walt Disney Company has really grown to become a multinational company. This growth can be evidenced by its many park branches in California, Tokyo, Florida, Hongkong and Paris. Its great and main involvement is to sell vacation packages to people from all over the world who wish to visit the ‘magic Disney land’. Disney World Travel Agencies is a subsidiary company of the greater World Disney Company. Their ever crowded jam park in its many Disney lands is a reflection of their customer satisfaction. This company allows visitors to book their vacations in their parks online through their heavily trafficked website. In addition, all this Disney parks have call centers where customers can call with in their enquiries, whether for Disney Land, Walt Disney World, Disneyland Paris or Disney land Hong Kong (Gittin, 2010). Problem Statement If the crowded Walt Disney Parks is anything to go by, one would expect that the job satisfaction for the employees in this company is high. As much as this company is greatly accredited to a great customer satisfaction, it continues to habitually leave employees wages low and stall promotions. (Watt, 2013). Being a multinational company, the company is not treating the employees as it should be. The rate of employee turnover in this company is very high, which directly translates to a low job satisfaction. There is tons of ambition, desire, and magic from each cast member only to be put down by management when someone has an idea (non-solicited ideas are not allowed by cast members). This course project will help Identify several changes needed to be made within the company structure of WTDC in order to get morale back to its previous heyday when Walt Disney himself ran the company. Literature Review Job satisfaction refers to how content an employee is with his or her job. It can be taken to be that aspect where one analyses the number of people who would say, “I love my job’. (Cranny et al, 1992).Job satisfaction can be in form of affective job satisfaction or cognitive job satisfaction. These two concepts are very different from each other yet they are closely related as they both deal with an employee’s relationship with his or her work. Affective job satisfaction refers to the emotions that one has towards their job. Are they happy and content? How much pleasure do they derive from their daily activities? Cognitive job satisfaction refers to employees feelings towards different aspects of their job, which might include maternity leave, pay or salary, management of the company among others. (Wang, Yang and Wang, 2012) These two concepts are usually applied when studying the organizational behavior, attitudes and actions of employees. The results are thereafter used to determine the overall job satisfaction of employees (Cranny, 1992). Frederick Herzberg, in his Two Factor Theory notes that motivation and hygiene are the two main factors that lead to either satisfaction or dissatisfaction of employees. Motivation factors are said to encourage and motivate an employee (Sultan, 2012). Examples of such factors include chances for a promotion, being complemented for work well done, achievement recognition awards among others. With these, the employee will have a higher level of job satisfaction. The hygiene factors include aspects such as favorable company policies, a good pay and other terms that are favorable and appealing to the employees. Frederick argues that these are the main factors that lead to either the satisfaction or the dissatisfaction of an employee. The Affect Theory, however states different reasons for the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of employees. In this theory, Edwin A. Lorkes argues that employee satisfaction dependent on what one expects in a particular job and what he really gets. For instance, take a case of an employee who really values employee engagement, then he or she is employed in a company that has minimal employee engagement. This person is most likely to be dissatisfied with his job (Xu, Jian and Wang, 2012) The factors that lead to job satisfaction are among others, equality, favorable company policies, good compensation and benefits, good pay and equality in chances of promotion. An employee will love what they do if they are usually appreciated, recognized, given a chance to be heard among others. If the above is not done, the employee might experience feelings of dejection or depression (Sultan, 2012). Job satisfaction is a combined effort between the employer and the employee. The higher the employees’ job satisfaction the better their service delivery (Cranny, 1992). It’s worth noting that the employees represent and sell the company to the public, hence, their job satisfaction is very vital. The Walt Disney Travel Company, before the recession had a reputation of being one of the best. In terms of service delivery and customer satisfaction, this has not changed. However, when it comes to employee satisfaction, there is a lot to be desired (Walt, 2013) Analysis Walt Disney, the founder of Walt Disney Company once said that “you can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world, but it requires people to make the dream a reality.” This meant that there had to be employees who other than being trained, they would have to be treated with respect and whose satisfaction would be a priority (Gittin, 2010)By the year 2012, The Walt Disney Travel Company had 150,158 employees globally. This translates to mean that it has a large customer base hence the large number of employees. However, the employee job satisfaction in this company is low. In three months, it is recorded that a number of not less that twenty employees quit working in this company and get employed elsewhere. In addition, there are still some employees who work here but they admitted that they are not satisfied with their work, and in every twenty of them interviewed, three are not satisfied. In these two categories of people, there were similar reasons and factors to which they attributed their job satisfaction. Some of the reasons discussed below were the most cited for contributing to customer dissatisfaction. Its not to say that there weren’t other reasons, just that these were the most prominent ones. One major reason for low job satisfaction is financial dissatisfaction. This factor was attributed to by the most number of people. Of those who left, 60 % said that they were not satisfied with what the company was paying them. They argued that they were doing too much and the salaries they got did not reflect this, it was too low and unsatisfying. This being the case, they decided to quit and relocate in search of where the ‘grass is greener’. Those still working and are unsatisfied with their jobs said that they would be content if their salary rates would be increased. They said that they are still in the job only because they have not yet got a better chance. Having said this, it can be seen that Walt Disney Travel Company still scores low in satisfying their employees. The problem of low salary can be said to originate from the rampant unemployment issue. The company takes advantage of the fact that there are so many unemployed people who are tirelessly seeking for employment. This makes them not to worry even when they record a high employee turnover (Chen, 2008). The Walt Disney Travel Company does not have an efficient employee engagement policy. An engaged employee is aware of the business and works closely with the peers to improve the organizational performance. This concept has been said to be neglected by the Walt Disney Travel Company. 20 % of those interviewed mentioned that the company does not engage them. They are not usually allowed to give their views, feelings or opinions about the company. Some of those who left the company to seek employment elsewhere said that maybe they would have stayed if they had been given a chance to express themselves and their views. Of those still working, some said that the Walt Disney Travel Company evaluation forms filled regularly are not enough. What they express in those forms are usually not addressed and hence they feel demotivated. This problem could be having its root from the management (Walt, 2013). If they took their time and engaged their employees, the rate of employee turnover would decrease. Too much work overload was also cited as a hindrance to employee satisfaction. 60 % of those who quit working in Walt Disney Travel Company said that the workload in the company was too much for them. They stated that the work is too tasking and demanding, strenuous and exhaustive and at times they were not able to fulfill their obligations. As a result, they would land into big problems with their supervisors and their superiors, which in turn would leave them feeling dejected. An employee who manages to accomplish what is expected of them and do it on time will most likely be satisfied with their job (Sultan, 2012). This is because it will mean less pressure on them and they expect that the more they please their superiors, the better for them. For those still working yet still dissatisfied, 30% did not fail to mention that the work in the company is too much, and given a chance to work in another company with lesser work(which would have meant lesser money), they would not hesitate to move. In addition, the employees also cited inequality in promotion and benefits as a reason that demoralizes them. 40% of those who left said that they had been in the company for more than ten years, yet they had not gotten any promotion. Thy said that other people who came after them and were ‘less qualified’ than them were promoted, leaving them in the same positions for almost a decade. There are those still working in the company who collaborated with those who left and said that the promotion chances in the company are not fair. Solutions If the above problems persist, then the Walt Disney Travel Company might harm its reputation. Image is very important for a company and thus the following solutions, if adopted would help greatly. The company should break routines. The employees should be encouraged to engage in different activities in the company. Companies that have this value are rated to be among the best performers. Not only does this reduce boredom, but it will also ensure that the employees get a first hand experience in most of the activities carried out in the company (Leary, et al, 2013). A change is as good as a rest, and this will increase the efficiency of the employees. The only side effect of this action would be the fact that it will take some employees a longer time to specialize in one area, but if adopted, it would definitely decrease the rate of employee turnover (Guarav, 2013). In addition, the Walt Disney Travel Company should promote communication between the management and all other employees. The employees should be given a chance and a platform to express themselves, their concerns and their feelings towards their jobs and their company. It has been noted that a company that has open communication between the management and the junior staff is ten times likely to be more successful than one without (Stride, Wall and Catley, 2008). Open dialogue is a critical ingredient for high job satisfaction. When employees feel and know that their supervisors and/or managers offices are open to them, they feel more confident and their job satisfaction is boosted. The disadvantage of this move would be the employees having a platform to provide excuses, especially if they become too familiarized with the managerial team. If the supervisors become too friendly, they might lose the respect of the employees. However, if the management operates on an employer-employee platform, this should not be hard (Chen, 2008). The Walt Disney Travel Company should work on changing their employment policies. This is in terms of their salaries, their compensation and benefits to their employees, job securities for the employees and their promotion and merit chances (Walt, 2013). With these, the employees are definitely going to feel that their worth is recognized and as a result, their job satisfaction will be high. This might however be costly to the management because it might lead to san increase in expenditures which might not have been in their budget. In terms of promotion and merit chances, it might be hard to give equal slots to the employees, especially if the chances are few and the qualified employees are many. Of the threes solutions suggested, communication should be the first to be implemented. This is because it will act like the cord between the other two solutions and tie them together for efficiency to be enhanced (Chen, 2013). Communication will ensure that the employees express themselves and have their worthy (if any) ideas implemented. Whenever they have concerns, they can comfortable have them addressed by the management. The management on the other hand can address and explain to the employees why one issue or another has or has not been handled, they will be expressly establish a platform that will increase efficiency and boost employee satisfaction. Communication will work best in this company to reduce the rate of employee turnover. This solution will involve all the members of the company, and in particular, those in the communication department (Leary, et al, 2013). A channel of communication should be identified, for example, when the communication is from the top manager to the junior employees, how is it channeled down. Or, if the junior employees want to be address by the manager, they should first write a letter, have it signed at the department then carbon copied to the respective offices that concern them, till it reaches the manger. It the Walt Disney Travel Company adopts an efficient communication channel then the employee rate of turnover will decrease (Guarav, 2013). Reflective thought Like Walt Disney said, to make your dreams a reality, you need people. When making any managerial decisions, you should not only think of your customer but also your employees (Chen, 2013). The human resource is the greatest asset in a company, and to make it to the top, they should be treated right. The issue of job satisfaction among employees is one that can be addressed, even by fitting yourself in the employee’s shoes. Is this pay worth the work done? Are the policies of my company suitable? (Sultan, 2012). How important is job satisfaction in this company? What can be done to boost the level of employee satisfaction? The most important aspect is trying to be the employee. The employee sell out the company to the public, hence, with a higher job satisfaction comes a better image of any company, however big or small it is. References Chen, X. (2008) The Relationship Between Managers Leadership Style and Employee Job Satisfaction in Selected Beijing Computer Software Companies. Beijing: Proquest. Cranny, C., Smith, P., &Stone, E. (1992). Job Satisfaction: How People Feel about their Jobs and How it Affects their Performance. New York: Lexiton Books. Gitlin, M. (2010). Walt Disney. Entertainment Visionary. Tampa: ABDO. Guarav, K. (2013). Drivers of Employee Satisfaction and Attrition. New Delhi. Grin Verlag. Leary, T., Raymond , D., Katy, S., Gerald , H., & Tracy, L. (2013). The Relationship among dysfunctional leadership dispositions, employee engagement, job satisfaction and burnout. The Psychologist- Manager Journal, 16(2), 112-130. Stride, C., Wall. T., & Catley. N. (2008) Measures of Job Satisfaction, Organizational commitment, Mental Health and Job Related- well being: a benchmarking Manual. New York. John Wiley and Sons. Sultan, S. (2012). Examining the job characteristics : a matter of Employees’ work motivation and job satisfaction. Journal of behavioral sciences, 22(2), 13-25. Wang. Y., Yang, C.,&Wang , K.(2012). Comparing public and private employees, job satisfaction and turn over. Public Personnel Management, 41(3), 557-573. Warr, P. (2012). Job Engagement, Job satisfaction, and contrasting associations with person-job fit. Journal of occupational Health Psychology, 17(2), 129-138. Watt, S. (2013). The magic kingdom: Walt Disney and the American way of life. Missouri: university of Missouri Press. Xu, X., Jian, Z., &Wang, X. (2013). The impact of substitutes for leadership on job satisfaction and performance. Social behavior and personality: an international journal, 41(4), 675-685. Read More