I.B.3 How Satisfied Am I With My Job?

For the 20 items on this questionnaire, select your response from one of the following:

1 = Very Dissatisfied
2 = Dissatisfied
3 = I Can’t Decide
4 = Satisfied
5 = Very Satisfied

On my present job, this is how I feel about:

1. Being able to keep busy all the time. 4

2. The chance to work alone on the job. 5

3. The chance to do different things from time to time. 2

4. The chance to be “somebody” in the community. 2

5. The way my boss handles his/her workers. 1

6. The competence of my supervisor in making decisions. 4

7. Being able to do things that don’t go against my conscience. 5

8. The way my job provides for steady employment. 5

9. The chance to do things for other people. 3

10. The chance to tell people what to do. 3

11. The chance to do something that makes use of my abilities. 2

12. The way company policies are put into practice. 1

13. My pay and the amount of work I do. 2

14. The chances for advancement on this job. 1

15. The freedom to use my own judgment. 5

16. The chance to try my own methods of doing the job. 4

17. The working conditions. 5

18. The way my coworkers get along with each other. 3

19. The praise I get for doing a good job. 3

20. The feeling of accomplishment I get from my job. 1

Source: D.J. Weiss, R.V. Dawis, G.W. England, and L.H. Lofquist, Manual for the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Industrial Relations Center, 1967). Evaluated in J.L. Price and C.W. Mueller, Handbook of Organizational Measurement (Marshfield, MA: Pitman, 1986), pp. 228-31.

Analysis

Scoring Key

To score this instrument, your responses to all 20 items were added.

Your score is: ______

Analysis and Interpretation

Job satisfaction is your general attitude about your job. High satisfaction tends to be related to lower levels of absenteeism and turnover. And, of course, high satisfaction is likely to spillover into raising your overall level of life satisfaction.

Studies using this instrument tend to find means in the 74 to 76 range. If you scored low, you might want to look at specific items in this questionnaire. Are there certain aspects of your job—supervision, pay, lack of advancement potential, coworkers, the work itself—that are causing problems? What, if anything, can be done to improve them? It may also be that your low satisfaction is due to you and not your job. That is, you may have a negative genetic predisposition toward life. So regardless of the job you’re in, you may just tend to be unhappy.