I've just been reading a paper that describes a meta-analysis of studies that examine the factors that make us successful at work. Of course the whole notion of what 'success' looks like in career terms is up for debate (one to return to another day), but for the purpose of this article, the researchers were looking at the factors that predict salary and promotion.
The first thing I found interesting was that there are apparently two identified ways to promotion in the work place. The first is known as 'contest mobility' which is promotion based on merit. Promotion is based on an open contest, and the most suitable person gets the job. The second is 'sponsorship mobility'; which refers to the idea that the person who gets promoted is the one who has been chosen by the organisation as a high flier. Early in your time in any organisation, the senior managers make a decision about whether you are the kind of person they want to promote. If you are the chosen one then you are likely to get the promotion regardless of whether you are actually the most deserving.
Contest mobility is (thankfully) the more common reason for people to get a promotion or pay rise, but I was interested to see that as well as leading to higher chances of promotion, being sponsored by your organisation is also a really clear predictor of job satisfaction. It seems that the feeling that your managers rate you and want to help you in your career makes you feel good about work, over and above its impact on objective factors such as promotion and pay.
In terms of top tips for clients (and indeed ourselves) looking to climb the corporate ladder, the strongest predictors of salary are:
1. Your IQ
2. Your education level
3. Your political knowledge and skills
And the factors most likely to lead to a promotion are:
1. The amount of training you get access to (strongly linked to the organisational sponsorship idea)
2. Your social capital
3. The hours that you work (the more the better).
The notion of organisational sponsorship is a good one to share with clients, as it seems that putting in a super human effort in the early stages of your time in an organisation to try and make the right impression, pushing for training opportunities and working long hours are likely to pay off.
Ng, T.W.H., Eby, L.T., Sorensen, K.L. and Feldman, D.C. (2005) Predictors of objective and subjective career success: a meta-analysis Personnel Psychology 58 367 - 408
Showing posts with label job satisfaction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label job satisfaction. Show all posts
Saturday, 25 January 2014
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
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!
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!
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