More on Job Satisfaction

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!