“What do you think people want from their jobs? Higher salary? Security? Good relationships with co-workers? Opportunities for growth and advancement - or something else altogether?” We all aspire to get a job that will give us utmost satisfaction in the future, but do we really know what job satisfaction is and why is it important? As future employees and employers, most of us will spend a huge amount of our waking hours at work; hence, job satisfaction will play a huge role in our lives. Today, I’m going to discuss with you what job satisfaction is why is it important to future employees and employers like us.
The concept of job satisfaction has been developed in many ways by many different researchers and practitioners. It was defined by Locke (1976) as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences. Some of the common theories of job satisfaction include the affect theory, two-factor theory, dispositional theory, and job characteristics model. The affect theory argues that a person’s job satisfaction can depend on two factors: the expectations he has for a job, and the actual things that he is going to get in that job. The smaller the gap between these two, the more chances he is satisfied in his work. According to the two-factor theory, there are two separate sets of factors contributing to motivation - motivational and maintenance factors. Motivational factors acknowledge intrinsic factors; while maintenance factors acknowledge the extrinsic factors or those that are present in the working environment of an employee. The dispositional theory suggests that one’s personality is an important determinant of the satisfaction level the person gets from the job. For example, an introverted person who may be inclined to have a lower self-esteem may experience a low job satisfaction. A person, however,