time, retrenchment can trigger panic and anxiety among the remaining employees which increase their stress level during work. Untrustworthy employers can be another source of stress. Distrust can be raised from various different situations such as harassment. It becomes difficult to work in an uncomfortable working environment consistently, stress and anxiety increased by trying to avoid troublesome confrontations and situations (Gregory, 2011). It had also been discussed that promotion and career advancement can be one of the leading factors to job stress. The increased stress may come from heavier workloads, extra responsibility and reduced leisure time (Mahfood, Pollock, & Longmire, 2013). Job stress has been generally defined as a factor which has negative impact on job satisfaction in previous literature. The higher the stress level is, the more likely that an employee is not happy and not satisfied with his job. Thus, the following proposition is formulated for this study which job stress has been viewed as an antecedent of job satisfaction:
Proposition 1: Job stress will be negatively related to job satisfaction.
Lack of Communication
Communication can be interpreted as the exchange of information between a sender and a receiver. Communication is a fundamental management activity in every organization because it is crucial for employees to receive correct information regarding to their jobs. Communication has been widely valued in organization today; it has been seen more multidimensional than just message exchange or provide information about people’s work. Communication is about relationships which it acts as the social glue that ties employees within the organization together (Steingrímsdóttir, 2011). Communication channels can be divided into two categories which are formal communication and informal communication. The most popular formal communication ways are face-to-face communication and technical communication. Informal communication is communication stemmed naturally from people’s interactions. People can talk about their feelings, create relationships and discuss any issue that matter to them each time. It is believed that informal communication is the communication which established the actual relationships
among people in an organization. However, informal communication tends to increase rumours or carry wrong information within the organization (Steingrímsdóttir, 2011). Right communication channel is vital for an organization. By choosing channels can make a real difference in how the message is received. Different communication channels are suitable and fit for different kinds of information and achieve different objectives (Steingrímsdóttir, 2011). Lack of communication in organization leaves employees feeling disconnected from the organization. Generally this is the result of management personnel who do not know how to relate their employees on a personal or professional level. Lack of communication or bad communication dampens employees’ job satisfaction because employees tend to perform at a lower level when they feel neglected (Gregory, 2011). Besides, lack of communication can also leads to confusion between management and other employees throughout the organization which might incur frustration and resentment. The organizational morale can be negatively affected by gossips and rumours due to lack of communication too. The deteriorating working environment can cause job dissatisfaction and high employee turnover (Ashe-Edmunds, 2014). In an organization, managers should communicate with lower level employees. Managers act as the connection of the organization which will give employees a sense of belongings and worth in the organization. Supervisors should also become the role model to promote friendly relationships with employees in order to achieve a healthier working environment. It is imperative that managers and supervisors respect all the employees, their opinions and their work. Understanding of the organization’s direction and goals and clarification of expectations associated with different positions should be communicated and conveyed to the employees to assist employees in understanding their direct relationships with the organization and how their work affects others’ work (Gregory, 2011). In addition, performance reviews can be utilized as a managerial communication tool because they give administrators an idea of those employees that are contributing to the organization’s success and those who need to work harder. In general, employees may be unaware of their performance measures and have no sense of how they can improve. Without communication through performance reviews, it
would be tough for employees to make any progress in their efficiency which also negatively impact their personal or professional development, and in turn, incur job dissatisfaction (Gregory, 2011). Therefore, in light of the above discussion, it is proposed that:
Proposition 2: Lack of communication will be negatively related to job satisfaction.
Pay
Compensation is the total amount of the monetary and non-monetary pay provided to an employee by an employer in return for work performed as required. The monetary pay includes fixed pay which the amount and payment are guaranteed and flexible pay which contains variable pay such as goal-base pay, overtime and etc. Non-monetary pay includes all kinds of employee benefits such as family assistance, recreational opportunities, complementary pension plans, health insurance and etc (Igalens & Roussel, 1999). It was suggested in previous literature (Money & Graham, 1999; Green & Heywood, 2008) that monetary pay is the primary motivator for employee performance and a determinant of job satisfaction. Employees generally prefer their work efforts to be recognized and rewarded thus recognition of an employee’s hard work is essential to his or her job satisfaction. However, too often organizations are more focused on production and revenues, rather than their own employees (Gregory, 2011). By rewarding employees monetarily or non-monetarily as incentive, employees would feel that their hard work and achievements have not gone unnoticed. Employees need to feel appreciated, as employees and as human (Branham, 2005). By linking the money and performance tends to motivate employees to be more productive and hence they would be more willing to work harder towards success (The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, 2012). Through rewarding, employees are more optimistic about future employment in the organization too (Gregory, 2011). It is believed that employee’s job satisfaction and organizational retention rate can be boosted through a healthy compensation plan with room for bonuses and pay rises (The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, 2012).
However, organizations should be very prudent in planning of pay structure and should set confidentiality policy for individual employee’s pay amount. Normally organizations choose to underpay those employees who are willing to work hard for minimal pay while to pay more to those who are not willing to work for minimal pay. The pay disparity will eventually lead to great degree of job dissatisfaction when the hard workers realized they are not being paid fairly (Branham, 2005). Refer to the Society of Human Resource Management research report conducted in May 2014; pay has been identified as the most important drivers for job satisfaction by which 60 percent of employees rated compensation/pay as very important and 36 percent rated it as important. Compensation/pay was also claimed as the leading factor of job satisfaction across four generations of employees which are millennial, Generation X, Baby Boomers and Veterans (Miller, 2014). It is noteworthy that there was previous studies indicated that the pay amount or salary amount is not the main determinant for job satisfaction. The comparison of income which employees set up as referential point is more significant in influencing employee job satisfaction. Given the similar qualifications and specifications, if an employee believes that the salary offered in other organization is higher, he or she will be dissatisfied even his or her salary is considered high as compared with the salaries in the organization he or she works in (Al-Zoubi, 2012). According to Miller (2014), more than half of employees feel satisfied if they are paid competitively with the local market. As a result of the empirical studies, it is believed that pay is able to influence the job satisfaction level of employees. Therefore, the following statement is proposed:
Proposition 3: Pay will be positively related to job satisfaction.
Theoretical Framework
There are many empirical studies and literature focused on the topic of job satisfaction. Numerous factors which will influence job satisfaction have been discussed individually. The factors include limited personal and career growth, job characteristics, job security, organizational support, social relationship within organization, relationship with immediate superior and etc. Different factors are
associated with the job satisfaction either positively or negatively. Three most popular factors have been the focus of this study, which are job stress, lack of communication and pay. Job stress, which inversely affects the emotions and feelings of employees at work, is likely to induce job dissatisfaction. Low morale, misunderstanding and reduced job satisfaction can happen if there is lack of communication. On the other hand, the perception of employees that their pay or salary is comparatively or relatively low will instigate employees’ dissatisfaction at work too. By looking at the selected factors, a theoretical framework has been generated to indicate the influence of job stress, lack of communication and pay on job satisfaction. The theoretical framework is depicted in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Proposed Theoretical Framework
Research Implications
With the changes of the external environment, organization competitiveness is no longer solely relied on the tangible assets, but also numerous intangible assets. As environment become increasingly dynamic, innovation is getting more and more important. The most effective sources of innovation are often ideas emerged from within an organization, usually from employees. Hence an organization’s competitive advantage can be generated through human resources. Job satisfaction was studied in this paper as it is one of the key factors which directly related to employee motivation, employee commitment and productivity and employee turnover rate. An organization can focus on productivity and increased sales if its employees are happy and satisfied with their jobs while its competitors are still struggling to maintain experienced and motivated employees. In reality, organizations are facing the issue of creating high job
员工工作满意度外文文献翻译
