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A satisfied employee is a productive employee.

Name:Grace Ng’ang’a

Student Number:23001873

Alphacrucis College: Sydney campus

Subject Code:RES 401

Essay Part 1

Due date:15th October 2023

Submission date:15th October 2023

Final word count: 1000 words

Plagiarism Quiz Score: 100%

Plagiarism Quiz Completed: 17th August 2023

I hereby declare that the following work in this assessment is my own, except where indicated
through due referencing. This assessment has not, in full or part, been submitted for another class or
course at AC or any other institution.

Signed: G.W.N Date: 15TH October 2023

A satisfied employee is a productive employee.

Background

Employee satisfaction is one of the most long-standing social science study areas.

Various authors and scholars have contributed massively to understanding employee satisfaction,

giving rise to numerous definitions and models. One of the most accepted definitions of

organizational philosophy is the one proposed by Edwin Locke in 1969. According to the

scholar, job satisfaction is the pleasurable emotional state of an employee that occurs due to the

review of one's job achievement or the degree to which it contributes to achieving one's personal

job values (Sumanasena & Mohamed, 2022).

Despite being proposed more than five decades ago, this definition is becoming relevant

in the modern work environment more than ever. Researchers are more than ever interested in

understanding the various elements linked to the definition, including an individual's emotional

state, review, values and achievement. Considered wholesomely, Badrianto & Ekhsan (2020)

noted that job satisfaction is the overall attitude towards one’s work. Badrianto & Ekhsan (2020)

go further ahead to note that, like in every attitude, the job satisfaction attitude has underlying

factors influencing it, is linked to particular emotions, and influences an individual’s behaviour.

Most employers are concerned with how effectively they create an environment where

employees gain more satisfaction without harbouring dissatisfaction. They want to create a

positive work environment by understanding satisfaction factors. For instance, a study by Ali &

Anwar (2021) revealed that the most significant factors influencing satisfaction are effective

management, work culture and hiring capabilities of the firm. They noted that employees who

feel engaged, valued and confident about their company’s goals often rank higher in satisfaction.
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Other scholars are interested in understanding how employee satisfaction, or lack thereof,

influences behaviour. They want to discover how the pleasurable feeling resulting from

satisfaction with one’s job influences the actions that follow, with one of the most common

opinions of researchers in the field being that a company’s success is inherently tied to its

employee's satisfaction (Kurdi et al., 2020). It has been consistently noted that employees are the

most valuable resource in an organization. As organizations attempt to discover the key to

leveraging their most critical resources, understanding key parameters such as satisfaction and

loyalty is paramount.

Thus, the link between employee satisfaction and their behavior is one of the most

researched areas. Some of the theories employed to help understand employee satisfaction

include Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory and Herzberg's two-factor theory. The hierarchy of

needs theory stipulates that essential human needs, such as safety and physiology, must be met

before other complex needs, such as belonging and esteem (Roberts & David, 2020). It implies

that for employees to show high levels of motivation, their current level of needs has to be

satisfied first, hence holding employers up to meet the current needs of their employees to

improve satisfaction.

Herzberg’s two-factor theory contributes to this field by emphasizing how motivator

factors such as recognition and achievement enhance the satisfaction of employees, thereby

encouraging creativity and commitment (Roberts & David, 2020). Newer theories, such as the

dispositional approach theory, consider the contemporary considerations of the personality of

individual workers and how this impacts satisfaction. According to Nikolaev et al. (2020), an

individual's personality impacts how they react to various circumstances, and the implication
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herein is that employers need to assess and understand employees as individuals to produce the

best results for their happiness and satisfaction.

This report will delve into research on why satisfied employees are productive

employees, using three main arguments to support this view. An outline of the three arguments is

given below:

Satisfied employees record higher performance

This argument will give evidence to support the link between employee satisfaction and a

collaborative, creative, and innovative attitude. It will evaluate how satisfied employees work

efficiently, become creative and innovative, and how this results in overall goal achievement and

higher performance. It will propose that employee satisfaction leads to higher productivity,

making organisational goals more achievable.

Satisfied employees equal to happy customers

This argument will evaluate how employee satisfaction encourages employees to serve

customers better. It will delve into the concept of customer service and how it relates to

employee satisfaction and the ultimate consequence of customer satisfaction. Supporting

evidence will be detailed on why employee satisfaction is paramount in customer service.

Satisfied employees have more significant job commitment

This argument will evaluate how satisfied employees show higher job commitment and how this

influences actions such as turnover, absenteeism and go-slows. This argument evaluates how

employee satisfaction keeps employees committed to their work, translating into high

productivity. It will offer supporting evidence as to how satisfied employees record higher

productivity.
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References

Ali, B. J., & Anwar, G. (2021). An empirical study of employees' motivation and its influence on

job satisfaction. Ali, BJ, & Anwar, G.(2021). An Empirical Study of Employees'

Motivation and Its Influence on Job Satisfaction. International Journal of Engineering,

Business and Management, 5(2), 21-30.

Badrianto, Y., & Ekhsan, M. (2020). Effect of work environment and job satisfaction on

employee performance in pt. Nesinak industries. Journal of Business, Management, &

Accounting, 2(1).

Kurdi, B., Alshurideh, M., & Alnaser, A. (2020). The impact of employee satisfaction on

customer satisfaction: Theoretical and empirical underpinning. Management Science

Letters, 10(15), 3561-3570.

Nikolaev, B., Shir, N., & Wiklund, J. (2020). Dispositional positive and negative affect and self-

employment transitions: The mediating role of job satisfaction. Entrepreneurship Theory

and Practice, 44(3), 451-474.

Roberts, J. A., & David, M. E. (2020). Boss phubbing, trust, job satisfaction and employee

performance. Personality and Individual Differences, p. 155, 109702.

Sumanasena, M. L. H., & Mohamed, N. F. (2022). Teacher job satisfaction: a review of the

literature. Muslim Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 1-12.