I've spent the day submerged in job satisfaction data so am bringing you some of the choicest fruits of my labour.
There is LOADS written about this. Papers about specific groups of society, different facets of satisfaction and different occupational groups (especially nurses, for some reason!). I think that one reason that the topic is so popular is that it touches on a wide range of academic disciplines. The topic has some currency for Occupational Psychologists, Human Resources, Economists and Business Management researchers as well as our very own vocational psychologists, so the topic is dealt with from many different angles. Including molecular genetics, and I can now reveal that there are 2 genetic markers, dopamine receptor gene DRD4 VNTR and serotonin transporter gene 5-HTTLPR, that are weakly but significantly associated with job satisfaction. But you probably knew that already!
So, what have I found of interest? One really interesting study (Abele and Spurk 2009) looked at the way that objective and subjective measures of career success interrelate. Objective measures would be things like pay and heirarchical position and subjective measures are split in to comparisons with others (how well you feel that you are doing compared to your peers), and job satisfaction. So, no great surprise that objective success didn't particularly increase job satisfaction, but what was quite interesting was that both subjective measures influenced the objective success which means that if you're happy in work, AND if you think that you're doing well compared to your peers, you are likely to end up with a higher salary and more promotions.
Another, perhaps more controversial paper looked at jobs satisfaction for men and women in a range of professions. Cassidy and Warren found that men and women are both happier in occupations that are dominated by their own sex (so women in female-dominated jobs are happier than men in female dominated jobs), but that both sexes have greater job satisfaction in male dominated jobs. They suggest that the reason for this is all down to the notion that male-dominated jobs have higher status and that this makes employees more fulfilled at work.
The work factor that has the most impact on job satisfaction by miles is task variety, and this is linked to autonomy, in part because an autonomous worked has the flexibility to control their own task variety and move on to the next thing as soon as they are ready to. Also significant are colleagues, - not so much in terms of having a single close friend at work, but working in a harmonious community - (more important to women than men). Having a good relationship with your supervisor however doesn't make much difference.
The last one I'm going to quote is evidence around the culture of the organisation. This can have quite an impact, with the most positive cultures being those which are creative, fair and having a reputation for doing what they do well. Cultures that reduce the job satisfaction of their workers are those which are aggressive, and which focus on goal achievement and on beating the competition.
So much food for thought! I wonder what we as career coaches should do with all this data? In some ways this would be amazing stuff to be able to share will clients, but it's quite a lot for us to make sense of, let alone trying to communicate it in such a way that our clients could find it helpful. But I must say, I can't wait to try!
Tuesday 6 December 2011
Friday 2 December 2011
Goal Setting - how important is it?
I had the great pleasure of seeing , Tony Grant give a lecture today. He was a very engaging, very accomplished lecturer. He knows his psychology backwards and did a very good job of bringing in evidence from all sorts of psychological disciplines into coaching.
The main thrust if his session was about goals, and made me question the importance of goal setting in career guidance and coaching. Goal setting is one of the things that careers advisers often imagine is a key difference between the two career disciplines.
I recently published an article in Constructing the Future which outlines the evidence of the difference between career guidance and career coaching, and previous research suggests that although goal setting is often perceived to be a key difference (with goal setting being a more significant part of coaching than guidance), in reality, coaches and advisers would use goal setting in the same way: setting goals with clients who would benefit from goal setting, and not with those who wouldn't.
This was an explanation that I was quite happy with, but listening to Tony Grant has made me wonder.
Grant was suggesting that it's just not possible not to have no goals. Goals don't need to be big or long term, but they do underpin everything. Without goals, we wouldn't be able to get out of bed, or make it to the office, and those of us who claim not to have goals, are either not really understanding what goals are, or are being disingenuous.
And, having thought about it, I quite agree. So where does that leave our career interventions? Should we be conducting coaching or guidance sessions that don't start with goals? I begin to think not. And whether we are using the GROW model as a framework for a coaching session, or the Ali-Graham careers interview model, we aren't going to get our clients very far if we don't set goals both for what we're planning to achieve during our time together, and if we don't identify an end point to their current career thinking.
I like the idea that in the collaboration between coach and client, the client is responsible for the topic, and the coach is responsible for the process. I think I've concluded that the place we all need to start in every interaction is with the identification of these two levels of goals. And I think that without a goal for the session, the conversation is just a chat, and without a goal for the client's current career exploration, we are failing to take adequate responsibility for the process, and letting our clients down.
So what do you think? Is it possible to have a productive coaching or guidance conversation without goals? What would you do as a practitioner if your client was reluctant to set a goal during your session?
The main thrust if his session was about goals, and made me question the importance of goal setting in career guidance and coaching. Goal setting is one of the things that careers advisers often imagine is a key difference between the two career disciplines.
I recently published an article in Constructing the Future which outlines the evidence of the difference between career guidance and career coaching, and previous research suggests that although goal setting is often perceived to be a key difference (with goal setting being a more significant part of coaching than guidance), in reality, coaches and advisers would use goal setting in the same way: setting goals with clients who would benefit from goal setting, and not with those who wouldn't.
This was an explanation that I was quite happy with, but listening to Tony Grant has made me wonder.
Grant was suggesting that it's just not possible not to have no goals. Goals don't need to be big or long term, but they do underpin everything. Without goals, we wouldn't be able to get out of bed, or make it to the office, and those of us who claim not to have goals, are either not really understanding what goals are, or are being disingenuous.
And, having thought about it, I quite agree. So where does that leave our career interventions? Should we be conducting coaching or guidance sessions that don't start with goals? I begin to think not. And whether we are using the GROW model as a framework for a coaching session, or the Ali-Graham careers interview model, we aren't going to get our clients very far if we don't set goals both for what we're planning to achieve during our time together, and if we don't identify an end point to their current career thinking.
I like the idea that in the collaboration between coach and client, the client is responsible for the topic, and the coach is responsible for the process. I think I've concluded that the place we all need to start in every interaction is with the identification of these two levels of goals. And I think that without a goal for the session, the conversation is just a chat, and without a goal for the client's current career exploration, we are failing to take adequate responsibility for the process, and letting our clients down.
So what do you think? Is it possible to have a productive coaching or guidance conversation without goals? What would you do as a practitioner if your client was reluctant to set a goal during your session?
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