Employee Satisfaction and

Commitment
Understanding Employee Attitudes
At the end of this module, you are
expected to:
1. Identify the antecedents of employee
satisfaction.

2. Relate organizational job fit with

employee satisfaction
Definition of Terms

Job Satisfaction Organizational Commitment

• Aka Employee Satisfaction • The extent to which an employee

• The attitude employees have toward identifies and is involved with the
their jobs organization
• Measure of employee’s contentedness • It is the bond employees experience
with their job, whether or not they like with their organization
the job or facets of jobs (such as nature • Three types
of work, supervision, or pay)
• Important: Job satisfaction is
multifaceted. That is, employees may be
satisfied with one facet of work
(ex. Pay) but not another
(ex. Co-workers)
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 Three (3) Types of Organizational Commitment
Meyer and Allen, 1997

Affective Commitment Continuance Commitment Normative Commitment

• The extent to which an • The extent to which an employee • The extent to which an
employee wants to remain believes he/she must remain employee feels obligated to
with the organization, cares with the organization due to the remain with the organization
about the organization, and is time, expense, and effort that
he/she has already put into it • Sense of obligation to stay with
willing to exert effort on its the company
behalf • OR due to the difficulty he/she
would have in finding another • Ex: an employee was given her
• Affection for the job job first job by an organization,
• “Genuine commitment” • Ex: an employee might hate her was mentored by her manager,
job and want to leave, but and was trained at great cost
• Ex: an employee of Red Cross to the organization. The
might liker her co-workers, realizes that no other
organization would hire her or employee may feel that she is
and share the altruistic goals give her the salary she desires ethically obligated to stay with
of the organization the company because of its
extensive investment to her

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Why should we care
about employee attitudes?
The relationship between job satisfaction and
organizational commitment

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 Job Satisfaction and Organizational
Commitment
• Meta-analyses indicate that satisfied employees tend to be committed to an
organization (Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran, 2005)

• Employees who are satisfied and committed tend to do the following:

1. More likely to attend work
2. Stay with an organization (longer tenure)
3. Arrive at work on time
4. Perform well
5. Engage in behaviours helpful to the organization
6. And engage in ethical behaviour

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 Job Satisfaction and Organizational
Commitment
• Keep in mind: The relationship between job satisfaction and performance is not
consistent

• For highly complex jobs, there is a stronger relationship between job satisfaction
and performance than for jobs of low or medium complexity (Judge et. al., 2001)

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 What causes employees’
satisfaction and
commitment?
The antecedents to satisfaction and commitment

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 Antecedents of Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment

Organizational
and Job Fit
The Job Itself

Co-workers
Job
and
Expectations
Supervisors

Satisfaction Perception of
with Life Fairness

Satisfaction Chance for

Individual
Predisposition
and Growth and What are the things that
Commitment Challenge might explain why workers
are satisfied with and
committed to their jobs?

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• Certain types of people will generally be satisfied and
motivated regardless of the type of job they hold

• There are also some people who whine about every

job they have
Individual Difference Theory
• For this theory to be true, it would be essential that
job satisfaction be consistent across time and situation Postulates that some variability in job satisfaction
• Meta-analysis results indicate that job satisfaction is is due to an individual’s personal tendency across
consistent across time and situation situations to enjoy what he/she does

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 Genetic Predisposition
• Arvey and his colleagues found that
approximately 30% of job satisfaction appears to
be explainable by genetic factors
• Such finding does not suggests that there is a “job
satisfaction gene”
• Instead, inherited personality traits are related to
our tendency to be satisfied with jobs

Personality Variables
• Judge, Locke, and Durham (1997) have hypothesized that Areas of Individual Difference
four (4) variables are related to people’s predisposition to be Theory
satisfied with their jobs (Core self-evaluation): emotional
stability, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and internal locus of
control Basically, researchers in this field
• This means that people prone to be satisfied with their life, focus on genetic predisposition,
especially their work life, have high self-esteem, a feeling of personality variables and intelligence
being competent, are emotionally stable, and believe they
have control over their lives
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 Intelligence
• A meta-analysis of seven studies by Griffeth, Hom, and Gaertner (2000)
found that intelligence and job satisfaction were not significantly related
• With this, debunk the idea that a smart person would be bored with the
Areas of Individual Difference
job and have a low job satisfaction Theory
Basically, researchers in this field
focus on genetic predisposition,
personality variables and intelligence

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• Research also indicates that such traits as Type A
Behaviour, patience/tolerance, and social trust
are related to our tendency to be satisfied with
work (Stout et. al., 1987)

Individual Difference Theory

• Demographically, in terms of job satisfaction:
• Males = Females
• Whites > African Americans Postulates that some variability in job satisfaction
• Older workers > Younger workers is due to an individual’s personal tendency across
*a study by Ng & Feldman (2010) situations to enjoy what he/she does

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 Satisfaction with Life
People happy in life tend to be happy in their jobs and vice versa

A study of Judge and Watanabe (1994) found that

for the majority of their participants (about 2/3),
high levels of life satisfaction are associated with
high levels of job satisfaction
In other words, satisfaction with one’s job “spills
over” into other aspects of life, and satisfaction
with other aspects of life spills over into
satisfaction with one’s job
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• A meta analysis of Wanous, Poland, Premack, and
Davis (1992) concluded that when an employee’s
expectations are not met, the results are lower
job satisfaction, decreased organizational
commitment, and an increased intent to leave
the organization

• The results of this study support the importance

of realistic job preview and promises made to
employees must be kept (by the employer) Discrepancy Theory

If there is a discrepancy between the needs,

values, and expectations and the reality of
the job, employees will become dissatisfied

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Employee: Job: Organizational and
Values Tasks Job Fit
Interests Company
Is there a match between the person and the Job/Organization?
Personality Co-workers
Lifestyle Supervisor
Skills Vocation In addition, there should be a Need/Supplies
Fit among employees (DeRue, 2002)

Need/Supplies Fit – the extent to which the

rewards, salary, and benefits received by
employees are perceived to be consistent
with their efforts and performance
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 Organizational and
Job Fit
Results of Meta-Analysis (Kristof-Brown et. al., 2005)

Employees who perceive a good fit with their

organization, job, coworkers, and supervisor tend
to be:
• satisfied with their jobs
• identify with the organization
• remain with the organization
• perform better
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Not surprisingly,
• Employees who find their work interesting are more satisfied and motivated than employees who do
not enjoy their jobs (Gately, 1997)

Interestingly,
• Employees rank interesting/enjoyable work as being the most important factor in a job (Glanz, 1997)

The Job Itself

Are the tasks enjoyable?

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 Co-workers and
Supervisors
Do employees enjoy working with their supervisors and co-workers?

• People who enjoy working with their supervisors

and co-workers will be more satisfied with their
jobs (Mossholder, Settoon, & Henagan, 2005)
• Satisfaction with supervisors and co-workers was
related to higher productivity, lower intent to
leave the organization, and a greater willingness
to help
(Bishop & Scott, 1997)
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 Co-workers and
Supervisors
Social Information Processing Theory aka
Social Learning Theory

• Postulates that employee observes the levels of

satisfaction and motivation of other employees and
them model those levels
• If an organization’s older employees work harder
and talk positively about their jobs and their
employer, new employees will model this behaviour
and be productive (the reverse is also true)

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Equity Theory
Based on the premise that our levels of job
satisfaction and motivation are related to how fairly
we believe we are treated in comparison with
others

Despite the intuitive sense of this theory,

implementing equity is very difficult for some
reasons:
• Degree of control: a company can control such
variables as salary, benefits, and work schedule,
but it cannot easily control other variables, such
as how far an employee lives from work or the no. Perception of Fairness
of friends an employee makes on the job
• Perception of equity: equity is difficult to achieve
because it’s the employee’s perception of inputs Are rewards and resources given
and outputs that determines equity, not the equitably?
actual inputs and outputs 21
How to increase perceptions of
equity?

• Organizations need to do a better job of

explaining their compensation systems to its
employees

• Allow employees to access the salaries of

their co-workers
• Most organizations in the private and public
sector keep such information confidential,
and some even include statements in their
manuals that forbid employees from
divulging their salaries
Perception of Fairness

Are rewards and resources given

equitably?

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Organizational Justice
Postulates that if employees perceive they are
being treated fairly, they will be more likely to
be satisfied with their jobs and motivated to do
well

Perception of Fairness

Are rewards and resources given

equitably?

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 Three Aspects of Organizational Justice
Distributive Justice Procedural Justice Interactional Justice

• The perceived fairness of the • The perceived fairness of the • The perceived fairness of the
actual decisions made in an methods used to arrive at the interpersonal treatment
organization decision employees receive

• Examples: • Example:
• Examples:
1. An employee who was fired 1. A supervisor might spend
1. Is termination really for breaking the rules, but
necessary for the employee? substantial time talking
was never given the
opportunity to explain what
with, mentoring, and
2. Was the higher raise socializing with some
received by one employee happened
employees while completely
justified? 2. An employee who was ignoring others
3. Did the right employee get promoted, but no other
promoted? employees were allowed to
compete for the promotion

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Meta-analysis results indicate that perceived
justice is positively related to several important
factors, including job satisfaction,
organizational commitment, performance,
trust; and negatively correlated with turnover,
and negative employee reactions (e.g. theft,
sabotage)

Colquitt, et. al. (2001)

Perception of Fairness

Are rewards and resources given

equitably?

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 Is there a chance forgrowth and challenge?

Satisfaction of employee self-actualization needs

To help satisfy employee self-actualization needs,

employers utilize the following methods:
1. Job Rotation
2. Job Enlargement
3. Job Enrichment

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 Job Rotation and Job Enlargement

Job Rotation Job Enlargement

• A system in which employees are
Goals of Job Rotation
• A system in which employees
are given opportunity to given more tasks to perform at and Job Enlargement:
the same time
perform several different jobs
in an organization • It involves the addition of tasks
• Challenge employees
• The employee is given the at the same level of skill and by requiring them to
responsibility. learn to operate and
same no. of tasks to do at one
time, but the tasks change perform several
from time to time Example:
Aside from being a receptionist in
different tasks
Example:
In an assembly line of shopping
a department, an employee will • Alleviate boredom by
also act as the office administrator.
carts, a worker may be He/she will handle the cleanliness allowing an employee
responsible for wheel fitting; in
the next week, she may fit the
and orderliness of the office, to change tasks
coordinate meetings, and arrange
handles the logistics within an organization

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 Job Enrichment
• A system in which employees are given more Methods for enriching employees’ jobs:
responsibility over the tasks and decisions 1. Give workers more responsibility over their
related to the job jobs
• Removing a quality control inspector to make the employee
responsible for the quality of his/her own work
• Job Characteristics Theory
2. Show employees that their jobs have
(Hackman & Oldham, 1975)
• Theorized that enriched jobs are the most satisfying because of the
meaning and that their work will lead to a
ff. reasons: goal helpful to the organization
1. Allow a variety of skills to be used
2. Involve tasks that have meaning, and 3. The use of self-directed teams or quality
3. Allow employees to make decisions circles
• These are groups of employees that meet to discuss and make
recommendations about work issues
• Job Diagnostic Survey – a measure of the • Meta-analysis results indicate that quality circles increase job
extent to which a job provides opportunities satisfaction and commitment (Pereira & Osburn, 2007)
for growth and meaning (by Hackman and • Allowing employees to participate in decision making results in
small but significant increases in performance and job satisfaction
Oldham) (Wagner, 1994)

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Measuring Job
Satisfaction and
Commitment
How an employee’s level of job satisfaction and
organizational commitment are measured?

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Generally, job satisfaction and commitment are measured in one of two ways:

1. Standard Job Satisfaction/Commitment Inventories

2. Custom-Designed Inventories

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 Commonly Used Standard Inventories

Measures of Job Satisfaction

1. Faces Scale (Kunin, 1955)

2. Job Descriptive Index (Smith, Kendall, & Hulin,
1969)
3. Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (Weiss,
Dawis, England, & Lofquist, 1967)
4. Job in General Scale (Ironson et. al., 1989)
5. Nagy Job Satisfaction Scale (Nagy, 1996)

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 Faces Scale
Kunin (1955)

• Employees place a mark under a facial expression that is most similar

to the way they feel about their jobs

• It is no longer commonly administered partly because it lacks

sufficient detail and validity

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 Job Descriptive Index
Smith, Kendall, & Hulin (1969)

• Consists of a series of job-related adjectives and statements that are

rated by employes
• The test yields scores on five-dimensions of job satisfaction:
supervision, pay, promotional opportunities, co-workers, and work
itself

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 MinnesotaWeiss,
Satisfaction Questionnaire
Dawis, England, & Lofquist (1967)
• Similar to JDI
• It contains 100 items that yield scores on 20
scales
1. Ability Utilization 11. Moral Values
2. Achievement 12. Recognition
3. Activity 13. Responsibility
4. Advancement 14. Security
5. Authority 15. Social Status
6. Company Policies 16. Social Service
7. Compensation 17. Supervision--Human Relations
8. Co-workers 18. Supervision--Technical
9. Creativity 19. Variety
10. Independence 20. Working Conditions

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 Job inIronson
General
et. al. (1989) Scale

• A measure of overall level of job satisfaction (rather than specific

aspects)

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 Nagy Job Satisfaction Scale
Nagy (1996)

• Includes two (2) questions per facet: one asking how important the
facet is to the employee and the other asking how satisfied the
employee is with the facet
• Developed to address the problems with other instruments: these
measures ask only if employees are satisfied with a particular aspect
of their job, nut not how important that job aspect is to them

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 Commonly Used Standard Inventories

Measures of Commitment

1. The Allen and Meyer Survey

2. Organizational Commitment
Questionnaire (Mowday, Steerss,
and Porter, 1979)
3. Organizational Commitment Scale
(Balfour & Wechsler, 1996)
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 Allen and Meyer Survey
1990

• Aka Three-Component Model Employee Commitment Survey

• Most commonly used measure of organizational commitment
• Has 24 items: 8 items for the 3 factors of Affective, Continuance, and Normative Commitment
• 7-point likert scale (1-strongly disagree; 7-strongly agree)

• Examples of questions:
A. Affective Commitment
1. I would be very happy to spend the rest of my career in the company
B. Continuance Commitment
1. I believe that I have too few options to consider leaving this organization
C. Normative Commitment
1. I would feel guilty if I left my organization now

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 Other measures of Organizational Commitment

A. Organizational Commitment B. Organizational Commitment Scale

Questionnaire (OCQ) (OCS)
• Developed by Mowday, Steers, and • Developed by Balfour and Wechsler
Porter (1979) (1996)
• A 15-item questionnaire • Measures three aspects of commitment:
• Measure three (3) commitment factors 1. Identification
1. Acceptance of the organization’s values and 2. Exchange
goals 3. Affiliation
2. Willingness to work to help the organization • Examples of questions: “I felt like a part
3. Desire to remain with the organization of the family at this organization” and
“What this organization stands for is
important to me”

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Custom Designed
Inventories

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 The use of custom-designed inventories
• Most organizations tap their employees’ levels of job satisfaction by using
custom-designed inventories
• Advantage: an organization can ask employees questions specific to their
organization
• Drawback: test construction is time-consuming and expensive

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 Consequences of
Dissatisfaction and Other
Negative Work Attitudes
Absenteeism, Turnover, Counterproductive Behaviours, and
the Lack of Organizational Citizenship Behaviours

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• Organizations throughout the world are concerned with
absenteeism because: Absenteeism
1. High monetary cost
2. It is a warning sign of intended turnover (Griffith et. al., 2000)
When employees are dissatisfied or not committed
• Absenteeism is moderately correlated with turnover (r = 0.21)
to the organization, they are more likely to miss
• In the most recent CCH survey on unscheduled work than satisfied or committed employees
absenteeism, the top reason why employees miss work is
due to illness (34%)
• Followed by family issues (22%), personal needs/errands (18%),
employee stress (13%), and sense of entitlement (13%)
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• It is important to note that there are large differences in
 How can we reduce the number of
unscheduled absenteeism?
• It is important that we understand why employees miss work

• That is, we need to link attendance to consequences (reward or punishment)

• Examples:
1. Wellness programs will increase attendance only if absenteeism is mostly the result of illness
2. Rewards and Punishment will reduce absenteeism only if employees make conscious
decisions about attending

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 Ways to Reduce the Rate of Unscheduled
Absences
1. Rewards for Attending (Financial incentives, Paid Time-Off, and Recognition Programs)

2. Discipline for not Attending

3. Feedback

4. Reducing Employee Stress

5. Reducing Illness

6. Not-Hiring “Absence-Prone” Employees

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A. Financial Incentives programs use
money to reward employees for
achieving certain levels of attendance
1. Well Pay – involves paying employees for
their unused sick leave
• Meta-analyses found that well pay programs
were the top method for reducing absenteeism
2. Financial Bonus – employees who meet an
attendance standard are given a cash reward
3. Games – the use of games such as poker or

•
bingo to reward employee attendance
Meta-Analysis of Wagner (1990) found that the
Rewards forAttending
mean effect size for games was close to zero

Attendance can be increased through the

use of Financial Incentives, Paid Time-Off,
and Recognition Programs
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B. Paid Time-Off (aka Paid Leave Bank)
• All paid vacations, sick days, holidays, and so forth
are combined into one category – paid time off
• In some PTO programs, an employee can “bank”
time off to use at a later date
• Some companies also allow employees to donate
unused leave to a leave bank for employees who are
stricken by catastrophic illness (CCH, 2004)
• An employee who is seldom sick has more days to
Rewards forAttending
use for vacation and is protected in case of a long-
term illness, and the organization saves money by
reducing the total no. of unscheduled absences
Attendance can be increased through the
use of Financial Incentives, Paid Time-Off,
and Recognition Programs
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C. Recognition Programs
• Formal recognition programs provide employees
with perfect-attendance certificates, coffee
mugs, plaques, and so forth
• HR directors do not perceive these programs to
be as effective as any of the other programs
Rewards forAttending

Attendance can be increased through the

use of Financial Incentives, Paid Time-Off,
and Recognition Programs
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 Disciplining for NotAttending (Punishment)

• Absenteeism can be reduced by punishing or

disciplining employees who miss work
• It can range from giving a warning or a less
popular work assignment to firming an
employee
• Discipline works fairly well, especially when
combined with some positive reinforcement for
attending

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• Almost 90% of employees think their
attendance is better than their co-workers (an
interesting study by Harrison and Shaffer, 1994)
• Thus, one reason employees miss work is that
they incorrectly believe their attendance is at a
higher level than their coworkers’
• Providing feedback to employees about their
Feedback
absenteeism levels may be one way to reduce
Absenteeism can be decreased by setting
absenteeism attendance goals and by providing feedback on
how well the employees are reaching those goals

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• About 2% of an organization’s employees
leave each month
• Turnover is a problem because the cost of
losing an employee is estimated at 1.5 times
the employee’s salary

Turnover
Employees with low job satisfaction and
low organizational commitment are more
likely to quit their jobs and change careers

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 Typical Reasons Why Employees Leave Their Jobs
Unavoidable Advancement Unmet Needs Escape Unmet Expectations
Reasons • Employee pursue • To reduce turnover • A means to be fee • When reality does
due to this reason, from working not match
• Job transfer of promotions or
an organization conditions, people, employee
a spouse, better pay must consider and stress expectations, they
employee • When an person/organization fit in • Thus, it is important are more likely to
illness or death, organization has selecting to effectively deal leave the
few promotion employees with conflict when
or family issues organization
or raise • That is, if an it occurs
• Turnover due to
opportunities, employee has a • Providing a mentor
need for structure unmet
• There is little an there is little it to help the
expectations can
can do to reduce and close employee deal with
organization supervision, but workplace be reduced by
can do to turnover for the culture of the providing
problems may be a
prevent employees company is one of way to reduce applicants with
seeking independence, the turnover (ex. Realistic Job
turnover due to
advancement applicant should Mediation Preview
these reasons not be hired Programs)

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Counterproductive
Behaviours
Other than being absent or leaving the job, dissatisfied
employees can engage in a variety of counterproductive
behaviours in an organization

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 Reference:

Industrial / Organizational Psychology, Michael Aamodt page 363-400

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