Effect Of Job Satisfaction On Employees’ Performance

INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

Every organization seeks to attain a high level of performance, productivity and efficiency in their day to day operations and activities. To achieve these, organizations always set several goals and objectives, and always seek to attract and retain highly qualified and motivated workforce in order to effectively achieve these objectives. Organizations also try to create a pool of satisfied workforce to ensure that obstructions are not place on the way of employees to generously commit themselves in the purse of stated and or emergent organizational goals. However, the total organizational performance depends on efficient and effective performance of individual employees who work in the organization (Onyebuchi, Lucky & Okechukwu, 2019). An organization therefore, look up to their individual employee performance to gain high performance.

According to Ezeanyim, Ufoaroh and Ajakpo (2019), job satisfaction is an attitude towards job, in other words job satisfaction is an affective or emotional response toward various facets of one’s job. A person with a high level of job satisfaction holds positive attitudes towards his or her job, while a person who is dissatisfied with his or her job holds negative attitudes about the job. Job satisfaction is a result of employees’ perception of how well their job provides those things which are viewed as important (Theresa & Henry 2016). Furthermore, Job satisfaction represents a complex assemblage of cognition, emotion and tendencies. There is no definite way of measuring job satisfaction, but there are varieties of ways to identify when an employee is satisfied or dissatisfied with his or her job (Ezeanyim, et al., 2019).

Understanding the level of employee satisfaction towards their assigned tasks and responsibilities as well as the level of fairness and equity between them will help managers of organization in carrying out their collective responsibilities more effectively. Inuwa (2015), opined that job satisfaction is seen as a combination of positive or negative feelings that workers have towards their work, when an individual is employed in a business organization, the employee brings with it the needs, desires and experiences which determine expectations that he has dismissed. Job satisfaction represents the extent to which expectations are and match the real awards (Aziri, 2021). In most cases today, most employees feel less satisfied with their jobs which result in poor job attitude, thereby affecting the overall performance of the organization. Those who perceive justice in their organization are more likely to feel satisfied with their job and feel less likely to leave and feel more committed to their job (Arti, Kuldeep & Ekta, 2019).

Employees should meet the performance criteria set by the organization to ensure the quantity and quality of their work. To meet organizational standards, employees need a work environment that allows them to work freely without problems that can stop them from reaching their full potential (Raziq & Maulabakhsh, 2015). They also need appropriate superior that will provide them with this environment, but above all, he will motivate them to work in the right way, make them feel satisfied with their work. Each employee has different criteria for measuring own job satisfaction. The factor that influences it, is the style of management, but also payments, working hours, schedule, benefits, stress level and flexibility. Job satisfaction is related to productivity, motivation, work performance and life satisfaction (Abuhashesh Al-Dmour & Masa’deh, 2019), which means that this also applies to the private lives of employees. It should be remembered that job satisfaction affects the employee’s feeling of security in the enterprise. A satisfied employee feels better in the company, perform his work better, but above all feels safe when it comes to his future and work in the enterprise. That is why job satisfaction is such an important element in an organization (Wolniak and Olkiewicz, 2019; Niciejewska, 2017).

However, job dissatisfaction and poor attitude to work may be as a result of a feeling of inequity among the employees. This therefore implies that employee’s performance can be determined by level of employee satisfaction on the job which will serve as a catalyst on the employee attitude resulting to equity and fairness. Vandenabeele (2019), stated that, positive emotions such as a feeling of satisfaction would bring about higher performance, especially when regarding performance as being broader than simple task performance. It’s also pertinent to note that good pay package conducive working environment and equal level playing ground among employees can bring about a positive job attitude and their combination will also determine the performance of employees in their workplace.

Employee performance generally refers to whether a person performs his/her job well or not. Job performance is the way employees execute their work. Employee’s performance is critical to the success of the organization. Organizations should therefore endeavour to invest resources into programmes in order to increase job satisfaction and their employee’s performance. Where there is employee job satisfaction, the tendency is to have low turnover, greater employee commitment and loyalty. Satisfied employees are sine qua non to the success of organization, therefore, organizations should be concerned with the constructs of job satisfaction and its impact on employee performance (Laosebikan, Odepidan, Adetunji, & Aderinto, 2018).

Employee satisfaction is an essential target for any organization to realize or achieve either in short run or in long run. Low level of employee satisfaction generates high employee turnover and the turnover intention is the desire to leave an organization (Saghir, Asad & Ishtiaq, 2015). It also reflected in leaving a department of a company (Abouraia & Othman, 2017). A person with a high level of job satisfaction holds positive attitudes towards his or her job, while a person who is dissatisfied with his or her job holds negative attitudes about the job. Job satisfaction is a result of employees’ perception of how well their job provides those things which are viewed as important. Therefore, job satisfaction depicts an important factor in employees’ performance.