Genetic Relations to Job Satisfaction - Essay Example

Genetic Relations to Job Satisfaction Introduction Job satisfaction is a of one’s attitude towards their work. In this context, attitude refers to an employee’s thoughts and feelings and how they evaluate what they do. This judgment can be overall or specific regarding payment, promotions, work assignments, co-employees and superiors. Job satisfaction can simply be defined as how an individual is happy with his or her work. It takes into account emotions, beliefs and behavior. On the other hand, genetics is the subdivision of biology that looks at heredity, narrowing down to the system of hereditary spread and variation of inherited traits among similar or linked creatures. Genetics can also be referred to as the genetic composition of an individual or group of people. In the past, genetics played a great role in breakthroughs as curing diseases, breeding better plants and animals basically under the realm of genetic engineering and even solving crimes in the field of forensic science (Sack, 2008).  It has recently been discovered that job satisfaction is largely genetically determined. This has brought into focus several questions such as: “How true is it that the level of competence in a person is equal to that of the parent?”, “Should people be employed on the basis on their parents or siblings’ work record?” “Should companies do a genetic study on all its employees to determine their traits, characters, health and how these relate to their work capabilities?” At this point, it would be too early to come up with a probable conclusion. It is this questions that this paper seeks to provide answers to as we determine through previous research if, indeed, job satisfaction is genetic. Analysis According to a publication of The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray (1994), it is a known fact that genetic factors influence fundamental aspects of our human nature. Initially, it was debated that environmental factors played a basic role in job satisfaction, but scientific research has proven that the applicable environmental aspects emerge to be those not shared by individuals raised together. On the other hand, the Classical Twin Study proved that most behavioural characteristics are heritable. The Classical Twin experiment applied sets of monozygotic twins, raised separately, to examine for the reality of genetic power on job satisfaction (Rais, 2011).  Research suggests that genetics has a role in the fundamental direct experiences of job fulfillment such as challenge or achievement. Scott Shane (2010) in Born Entrepreneurs, Born Leaders: How Your Genes Affect Your Work Life vividly explains how job characteristics such as the level of complexity, skill requirements, and physical demands were put under scrutiny and genetic heritability was found to have a direct relationship to them. This lends more credence to the fact that genetic variation actually has a role to play in work satisfaction. Response to Research Question With reference to the research question, managers should never ignore their employee job satisfaction. There is a great controversy whether job satisfaction leads to better performance or performance being the cause of job satisfaction. Aside from that, there is a positive relation between employee satisfaction and productivity. Satisfied employees are happy and content, perceive their work positively, and relate better with their colleagues. Without much debate, it is clear that all these will boost productivity at work and eventually will enable growth of a company. Job satisfaction directly affects performance. Putting genetic relations into play, we need to know that some people are genetically programmed to be satisfied or dissatisfied. As earlier discussed, genetics define our personalities. Managers should to be equipped with this knowledge to succeed at being good at their jobs and evaluate if their companies should acquire genetic information on their employees and use it to their benefit or not. Companies allowed to use genetic information at workplaces have sparked a lot of concerns on discrimination and unfairness, but many do not know the importance of permitting this. A look at a general example is: employers are not given the chance to use hereditary information in this way; they will subsequently punish people for poor performance on the job. And how does this occur? An employer gives a sales and marketing task. Individuals who are more attractive tend to achieve better sales than others. At the end of it all, they are rewarded for the work well done. What we do not know is that the others with poorer sales are better at accounting and would also earn a reward from it. The use of such genetic knowledge also ensures that no one has disorders that put them at risk or harm others. A typical example is Huntington’s disease, a genetic disorder that leads some people to engage in antisocial behavior. This will hinder progress in a company and also in the individual’s life having direct effect on productivity. The end result is a very dissatisfied employee. This could spur a chain reaction of unhappy employee, disagreements and aggression, and pose a direct threat to even the people working in the surrounding (Cara & MacRae, 2005). Managers should to be informed that employees’ genetic makeup affects pretty much all aspects of their behavior, including educational performance, job satisfaction, entrepreneurship, levels of intelligence and personality; they also affect our general perception of the world, whether positively or negatively, and our levels of activities, whether high or low. Genetic codes are, therefore, a determinant of everything an individual does that includes work being among the most important activities that touches on livelihood of both people and the respective organizations providing employment. Conclusion From the above discussion, hereditary factors determine employee job satisfaction levels in a great way. It influences the behaviors of particular personalities at the workplace in a variety of ways. Anything genetic or environmental that helps us better understand ourselves improves our work performance. Internalizing the influence that genetic makeup has on job-related attitudes emphasizes the importance of having a line of congruence between people and their workplaces. In another context, people have different attitudes, skills and abilities, which are not easy to change since they depend largely on genetic composition. Even though people can change their beliefs and abilities, in-built attitudes make them disapprove of changes in work environment. Managers should be well aware of how their employees are motivated at work. If it requires them to analyze their employees‘genetic makeup in order to understand their inborn attitudes, then this should be permitted. Consequently, respective companies will register a steady growth due to encouraged productivity. References Cara, E., & MacRae, A. (2005). Psychosocial occupational therapy: A clinical practice. Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Delmar Learning. Herrnstein, R. J., & Murray, C. A. (1994).The Bell curve: Intelligence and class structure in American life. New York: Free Press. Rais, C. (2011). Impacts of genetics in the workplace. New York: Nova Science Publishers. Sack, G. H. (2008). Genetics. New York: McGraw-Hill Medical. Shane, S. A. (2010). Born Entrepreneurs, born leaders: How your genes affect your work life. New York: Oxford University Press. Read More