The Causes of Employee Attitudes

Discuss about the Employee Attitude and Job Satisfaction.

This article aims to critically analyse the major gaps amid the scientific research and HR practice in the field of employee attitudes in general and their attitude towards job-satisfaction. The main focus of the paper will be on the causes of employee attitudes and the results of negative or positive job satisfaction with a little brief about how to influence and measure employee attitudes. The research that has been carried includes enquiry and survey based on journals and articles from newspapers, online blogs by Australian bloggers, and also academic articles, historical records and statistical information. The overall research showed mixed results in employee attitudes towards job-satisfaction, still measures should be taken to enhance the level of job-satisfaction amongst employees. In future, study and research will likely to be focused upon in-depth consideration of personal characteristics, for example, feelings, moods and emotion, in describing job-satisfaction also how the attitude of employees affects the performance of organization.

Keywords: Employee attitudes, Job-Satisfaction, measures, research, survey.

One of the most complex situations faced by leaders and managers of an organization is the attitude of their subordinate employees towards job-satisfaction. We have repeatedly heard these two contradicting statements “Happy Employees are productive employees” and “Happy employees are not productive employees” by managers, leaders and HR professionals. Employee attitudes and job-satisfaction is now a major topic of debate and confusion amongst its practitioners. Hence, this paper aims to provide in-depth knowledge and understanding about this topic and provide commendations associated to the key practitioner awareness gaps.

A study by human resource professionals Brown, Colbert & Ryan and research conducted on various scholar and journal articles claims that the main gaps exists in this field are: the reason behind the changing attitudes of employees, the impact of negative and positive job satisfaction, and what measures should be taken to judge and influence the attitudes of employees.

It is important to understand the meaning of job-satisfaction and employee attitudes before beginning further. Every employee at the organization has its own viewpoint about his career, his job and the organization he is working in. Conversely, based on the results of practise and research, job-satisfaction is the most pivotal attitude of an employee. Hence, this term ‘employee attitude’ will be used broadly throughout the paper, though the area of concern will be job-satisfaction majorly.

Locke (2002) has done a research on the topic and definition given by him is most used definition which is “. . . a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences” (p. 1478). The definition by Locke implicates the significance of both thinking, or cognition and feeling, or affect. Whenever we start thinking about something we develop feelings for what we are thinking, On the other hand, when there are feelings for something, we usually think about how we are feeling. Thinking and feeling are hence inseparably connected, in human’s biology and even psychology. Hence, while thinking about job-satisfaction both feeling and cognition is involved.

Dispositional Influences

Human resource practitioners, generally understands the significance of working conditions as cause of employee attitudes and the satisfaction for their job. Many studies have been conducted in the past to gain an understanding of cultural and dispositional influences on the job-satisfaction; still there is a major gap in the knowledge of the same.

An article on dispositional influences revealed that (Motowidlo 2006) an employee’s score for the satisfaction of his/her job is stable over time, even if the person changes jobs frequently. One of the article stated that an individual’s job satisfaction is statistically related to his childhood personality even up to 35 years far along (Staw & Ross, 2005). According to a study conducted by (Erez 2014), it has been indicated that job satisfaction even depends on the differences in employee’s temperament or disposition, although this point is in debate from several years. Regardless of several studies and researches, it is still unknown that up to what extent disposition influences job-satisfaction.

Hence, scholars now explore the inner progressions that motivate dispositional causes of job satisfaction. Such as, Durham stated that some events at workplace which might be related to employee’s emotions could be the reason. A study also specifies that behaviour traits, for example, meticulousness and extra-version could also result in affecting job-satisfaction.

The sustained globalization of corporations enforces new challenges for human resource specialists, on the other hand information available on HR issues and cosmopolitan organizational issues could help HR practitioners to gain better understanding of cultural influences on job-satisfaction.

Hofstede conducted a research in 70 countries over the data on employee’s attitude and demonstrated that culture has a great influence on people’s perspective of job-satisfaction and thus concluded that it could be grouped into four major dimensions which are uncertainty avoidance, achievement orientation, power distance and individualism vs. collectivism. Such as, Singapore was found to be low on uncertainty avoidance and power distance while very high on individualism while for China the state was completely opposite. China is very high on collectivism and power distance, while low on uncertainty avoidance and Mexico is high on all three dimensions.

The other factor in cultural influence has been found as “how the employees are valued and treated across various cultures in various countries”. Research indicates that there is a systematic variation on the viewpoint to which organizations view employees in humanistic vs. instrumental behaviours.

As per the recommendations to bridge the gap, cognizance and awareness and at any time when probable, adjustments to cultural factors which affect the attitude of an employee towards its job and a measurement of these are significant for human resource practitioners.

Cultural Influences

Another major gap of knowledge is to understand the impact of job satisfaction on an employee. Multiple confusion and debates have been heard over it in the past, if the employees who are satisfied with their job have a high level of productivity.  Human resource managers continually struggle over it as their motive is to limit the costs and are also apprehensive about its effects, which ultimately results in employee’s enactments and other results.

Many of the reviews from past studies shows that there is a little and weak association amongst performance and job-satisfaction. A study from the year 1996 suggests that co-relation amid performance and job satisfaction on the statistics scale in only 0.18 (Judge and Watanabe 2006). Hence, the researchers summed up their theory by stating that “association amid both was an ‘illusory’ and ‘administration fad’”.   Conversely, an advanced study on the same contradicts the above conclusion and states that “Unable to get a strong bond between performance and job-satisfaction is might be due to use of tapered characterizations of job-performance” (Bono and Patton 2011). Additionally, a recent analysis of 305 studies demonstrated that, when measurement and sampling errors are modified to correct co-relations, the average co-relation amid both is as high as .30. Hence, contradicting to past studies, it seems that performance is in all manner related to job satisfaction, and connection is even more string in case of professionals.

One of the major gaps in HR knowledge is how to influence and measure the attitudes on employees. Various possible methods are present for example, surveying, interviewing and conducting focus groups. Out of these, the best method is well-constructed employee attitude survey (EAS).

The research in this area is based on two surveys facet vs. global measures and employee attitude measures. As per the literature review, two of the broadly authenticated EAS measures are Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire and Job Descriptive Index.

The Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire assesses job satisfaction on the basis of versatile nature of an employee; short as well as long forms are available, along with faceted and global procedures. The Job Descriptive Index evaluates satisfaction regarding job on five distinct fields which are supervision, co-workers, promotion, pay and the work itself. This has an inspiring display of validation and is reliable.

Survey of Employee attitudes if used effectively could be facilitator of producing organizational change in a positive way and may also result in improving employee’s attitudes.

The Result of Positive and Negative Job Satisfaction

All through this paper, various studies have been discussed regarding knowledge gaps and also the paper discussed suggestions and various measures to close these gaps. One of the essential measures to bridge this gap is to have better and enhanced information from the research. As the HR professionals are always in demand for one or the other tasks, it would be really difficult to manage this, yet this is increasingly expected of HR practitioners.

Conclusion and Future Guidelines

The area of managerial psychology consists of rich, long and sometimes, contentious past in relation to the understanding of employee attitudes and job-satisfaction. Few of the scholars and researchers deliver guidance related to measuring, improving and understanding attitudes of the employees in the real world while some of the researchers are very specific and focused mainly on other publishers.

Future researches based on employees attitude and job satisfaction will try to possess a better understanding of the interaction amid the situation and the individual, also several external and internal aspects which affects the attitude of an employee will be discussed. Particularly, an enhanced knowledge of emotion’s role along with wider environmental impacts is the necessity of future research which has been overlooked in past.

Additionally, future research will be responsible for detailed understanding of effects of employee’s attitude and job satisfaction on administrative dealings, for example, fiscal procedures and customer satisfaction. More prominent experiences on the relationship between representative dispositions and business execution will help HR experts as they endeavor to improve the vital individual’s side of the business in an exceedingly focused, worldwide field.

References

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