Job Satisfaction and Career Development
Job satisfaction is considered to be the amount or degree of satisfaction and satisfaction an employee has with his / her overall job. This equation also takes into account satisfaction with the job itself, colleagues at work, supervisors, and policies here. Various research studies have highlighted the importance of focusing on employee job satisfaction as it plays a critical role in overall firm success or death. In addition, the importance of employee job satisfaction has been emphasized to a great extent in the literature due to its positive effect on employees’ job performance.
Workforce productivity in any organization is a fundamental driving force leading to the achievement of organizational goals. This highlights the importance of focusing more on job satisfaction as an equally important concern for family firms and large corporations. Recently, organizations have focused on maximizing productivity to maintain their competitive stance and better cope with emerging trends such as globalization. Today, the general direction firms are following as they expand is directed towards international markets that open up potentially rewarding new opportunities. However, whether it is responding to customer needs or developing and growing on its own, employees must feel relevant satisfaction for a company to ensure that its workforce is as efficient as possible and that the workforce is at the highest level of productivity.
To achieve this ultimate productivity, it is suggested that organizations identify important problems that can actually affect employee job satisfaction and try to overcome those events that hinder an employee’s level of satisfaction in the workplace. Inuwa, for example, discusses how job satisfaction relates to performance in his articles. The results of their analysis showed how an employee’s motivation to be productive at work would increase how satisfied the employee would be with the job, leading to the achievement of overall organizational goals. Otherwise, the employee’s motivation will decrease, which will affect the overall achievement of pre-set corporate goals.
In addition, when factors affecting employee motivation in organizations are managed, better employee results and performance are created. Therefore, the higher the employee motivation, the better the result of employee performance. This highlights the emphasized relationship between job satisfaction and employee engagement. Results of multiple studies show that the more engaged employees are, the higher their job satisfaction is. This is because employees who feel engaged in work have better, more efficient and more productive work behaviors, attitudes and motivations. On the other hand, job dissatisfaction can have serious consequences on the productivity of the firm, one of which is employee turnover. Turnover is when the employee decides to leave the organization.
Job satisfaction is important for employees to stay in the organization. Understanding generational differences and job satisfaction perceptions between different generations is enormous and extremely important. Organizations need to know what actually satisfies a person in order to stay in the organization, because a satisfied employee will work in the interests of the organization, which will lead to better overall job performance. Moreover, based on the findings of a research study conducted by Acharrya, there are four aspects that contribute to the satisfaction of the generation Y. These
• Education,
• The organization’s commitment to developing employees,
• Career development
• Career opportunities
Job Satisfaction and Career Development
Companies should also consider career development as a new key to retaining their employees, especially as Generation Y will represent the bulk of the workforce in the next 10 years. Career development is continued learning, development and progress towards one’s goals.
In addition, career development has its own advantages, one of which is that it reduces turnover and increases employee motivation. Career advancement benefits all generations, but is often sought after by millennials and therefore plays an important factor in job satisfaction. Career development includes comprehensive training, especially in areas that the employee wants to develop. It is associated with job satisfaction and career development and the influence of one on the other.
Career development involves making a structured, honorable and deliberate effort to achieve a state of equality between the goals and strategies of the organization and the career goals and progress the employee seeks. Proper career preparation and career supervision will lead to the best results of career advancement. McDaniels and Gysbers point out that career development is the sum of the mental, sociological, informative, bodily, financial and unplanned factors shared to build any targeted employee’s career.
Career development depends on the organization’s decision to transfer employees from their traditional jobs and the tasks common to them into more challenging jobs enriched by personal development and organizational activity initiatives. An effective career development plan helps employees harness the internal capabilities of the organization by correlating the experience and skills they have gained and linking them to the needs of the organization, while at the same time motivating and involving employees to do more with the provided compensation and backup plans.
He mentions that companies participating in criyer management will increase the job satisfaction of their employees. Gregson mentions that job satisfaction is the emotional state that the employee feels fulfilled after the performance management review and experience in the organization. Chay and Bruvold state that job satisfaction is an employee’s positive response to different stages of the job. Job satisfaction occurs after the employee experiences feelings of self-realization in his career.
In a study conducted by Chen, Chang, and Yeh, career development programs were found to be a positive source of inspiration on job satisfaction, professional development, and productivity. Moreover, a research study by Schein found that career development plays an important role in employee effectiveness and creativity in the long run. Moreover, a well-organized career development will allow employees to pursue improvements in their careers that would actually lead to employee job satisfaction. Also, Schein adds that employees will have different career development according to their preferences, goals and most importantly external factors such as global job changes.
It should be known that employees have different business needs at every stage of their career path. And organizations need to take into account the career needs of their employees at every stage in order to satisfy their career development and increase their organizational effectiveness and cope with their needs. Each specific stage of career development has different goals and different missions than the next.
In addition, organizations should be sensitive and open to the career development of their employees because it is the employee’s responsibility to modernize and improve, the area where each company differentiates itself from its competitors, and ultimately to obtain the information through themselves. He gains experience when everything is provided to him by the organization. Although managers determine the career development plan of the employee under the guidance of the human resources departments, each employee enters the company with a career development plan that they want to achieve with their experience in the organization. . In fact, many career plans proposed by employees are evaluated by managers and deemed beneficial for them.
In the case of Taiwan, where organizations worked to increase their competitiveness and become more involved in high-tech manufacturing and development, there were gaps between career development programs and expected career needs of production, and development increased job satisfaction among R&D employees. However, widening the gaps between career development plans and employees’ career needs will reduce job satisfaction among R&D employees. Moreover, vacancy changes at each career stage affect job satisfaction differently. Also, as the gap widens, employees who are at the start-up stage of their career will achieve lower job satisfaction, while those in the maintenance stage will achieve higher job satisfaction than those at any other career stage.
Various changes in the company such as downsizing, correct sizing and flattening affect the future career development of employees in the company. Moreover, employees are more satisfied with their job and do their best when they feel well-organized developmental career plans that support their development and progress to reach high levels and learn more on this career path. In addition, career development for employees helps the company to compete in the market by addressing the organizational needs of employees while developing them.
Companies that apply the person-environment theory tend to have the best career development of their employees and anticipate the needs of employees in a much more important way to know how to improve the employee’s interaction with the work environment. Potgieter, Coetzee, and Ferreira state that person-environment harmony is essential for a worker’s embeddedness and career. In addition, person-environment harmony is determined by the employee’s position in the company, culture and satisfaction in the work environment. It is also determined by career development and employee expectations.
