Mba505 | Reflective Writing-Business Psychology Assessment Answers

Secondly, there is an association which identifies the relationship between the present job and previous job. With this, if there is a similarity in the two jobs, there is an increased chance that the employee will be satisfied with that work hence improving productivity. In any organization, people work in groups leading to frequent interaction among employees. This is an example of social learning which has a great impact on the level of job satisfaction of employees. Take for instance, when an employee says that the job is tiresome, all other employees will agree. This kind of attitude will be affecting the employees’ job satisfaction level.

Job satisfaction in any organization has numerous benefits. As an illustration, when employees are satisfied with their job, there will be increased customer satisfaction. With this, customers may develop a change in attitude when it comes to their purchasing behaviors. This means that the buying power of customers will increase. When employees are satisfied, they will be in a position to handle the pressure associated with the work that they do. This means that employees will be able to work overtime depending on the work needs (Dugguh & Dennis, 2014). Others importance of job satisfaction within a workplace setting include a reduced rate of absenteeism, increased productivity, improved work relationships, and reduction in turnover. The major components of job satisfaction include evaluative, cognitive and affective components.

When it comes to job dissatisfaction, it can be defined as the negative feeling expressed by employees in a work environment. The primary causes of employees being unhappy/dissatisfied with their jobs include being underpaid by the organization since they have to take their time and give their best. When the payment is not equivalent to the efforts being applied in work, employees form a negative attitude due to dissatisfaction (Mullen, Malone, Denney & Santa Dietz, 2018).  Poor management can lead to employees being unhappy. Take for instance, when their poor management such as working in an environment with inadequate resources resulting from poor leadership, employees will feel that they have nothing to offer in such a work setting.

Other factors leading to job dissatisfaction are; limited carrier growth, unstable work, and life balance, authoritative and unsupportive boss. Lastly, there are inadequate opportunities within the work environment. Job dissatisfaction has a negative impact on the company. They include increased job stress, increase turnover of employees, reduced productivity, reduction in customer retention rate and poor market performance due to reduced competitive advantage (AlAzzam, AbuAlRub & Nazzal, (2017).

Theories of Job satisfaction

Job satisfaction is a psychological factor meaning that it can be seen. This means that job satisfaction is only expressed in which when an employee is satisfied with the kind of work or duties given, it will be reflected in the manner being completed and the outcome or feedback (Fernandez & Moldogaziev, 2015). Job satisfaction theories have had an overlap with theories that explain human motivation. The theory to be discussed is Maslow’s theory.

Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy Theory

According to this theory, there are human needs which are too satisfied before the rest. This means that there are certain human basic needs which should be satisfied hence followed by other based on urgency. As an illustration, Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy Theory is made up five hierarchies which describe the type of human needs that are to be satisfied on urgency level. The hierarchy levels include; physiological needs, safety, belongingness/love, esteem, and self-actualization. These five levels can be classified into two, Deficiency needs and growth needs. The first four levels will be referred to as deficiency needs whereas the top level is referred to as basic needs. This can be illustrated in the table below:

Figure 1: Source: https://www.simplypsychology.org.maslow.html

Deficiency needs do arise because of deprivation and they act as motivators when not met. This means that, when humans being are deprived of these needs for a long time, they will be motivated to fulfil such needs. According to Maslow, he argued that humans must always satisfy lower level needs before proceeding to the next level (Johnson, Irizarry, Nguyen & Maloney, 2018). However, he; later made a clarification that satisfaction is not an “all-or-none” phenomenon. From this he meant that at each level, when a specific human need has been satisfied either more or less, the urge will go away hence concentration in fulfilling the next level of needs. As a result, there should be growth determined by our habitual actions to satisfy the needs at each level. Growth often occurs from the desire to achieve more. According to Maslow theory, humans are able to move up to higher levels but failures to achieve the needs of the lower levels become stumbling block.

Within an organization, some of the urgent needs of an employee include financial compensation and healthcare. Additionally, safety needs will manifest when the employee is feeling safe at the place of work. When all the urgent needs have met such as favorable policies and job security, the employee will feel satisfied hence having the urgency to perform at his/her best (Homberg, McCarthy & Tabvuma, 2015). After security the next need is feeling wanted within the organization. A sense of belonging will involve feeling accepted, needed and being affiliated with a department where he/she can have a sense of identity. The final step that the employee will look for is self-actualization where he/she is expected to grow and become the person they have wanted. This explanation can be represented in the table below:

Figure 2: Source: https://www.simplypsychology.org.maslow.html

A description of selected job: Human Resource manager

The responsibilities of a human resource manager include; maintaining and enhancing the human resources of the organization through planning, implementation, and evaluation of employee relations. As a human resource manager, you are also entitled to ensuring that the policies of the organization are implemented and adopted.

The job tenure in this position is fulltime employment.

Job duties; -

The duties of the HRM include;

• Maintaining the work structure through frequent updates on job requirements and descriptions for all positions within the organization.
• Prepare employees for any assignment through arranging for training and orientation programs.
• The HRM is in charge of human resource staff within the organization. This means that I will be responsible for recruitment, retention, and reduction of employees.
• Additionally, the human resource follows up employees based on the completion of duties.
• Some skills are necessary for one to be a human resource manager. These skills include; planning, hiring and administrative. Some of the qualification needed is adherence to employment laws, compensation and wage structure and performance management.

Three theories of motivation applied to the selected job

The human resource performs key roles within the organization which helps in the running and sustenance of business operation. The following are theories of motivation showing how it is applied in the selected job:

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory

Maslow argued that people are motivated based on their level of needs, and he also explained how these needs are addressed in each level (De Vito, Brown, Bannister, Cianci & Mujtaba, 2018). The needs that are found at a basic level include security, social needs, psychological needs and favorable working conditions. When the right conditions are provided at work, employees will be able to work adequately. According to my job description, I am in charge of ensuring that all these conditions are met (Yousef, 2017). The company should be providing breaks during regular working hours. This will help in releasing work tension and give time for employees to have their personal space (Dabholkar, Mathur& Wallace, 2015). Base on my experience, a company, used to provide food for employees during their breaks and also order food for lunch in the company’s cafeteria located on the premises of the organization. With this, the company was able to address the urgent needs before fulfilling other needs. Like the gate, there was tight security where non-employees couldn’t pass without a thorough checkup.

Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory

According to theory, two factors motivate employees. They are hygiene and satisfiers. Consequently, these factors don’t determine success but their absence will lead to reduced work performance (Freitas & Duarte, 2017). Hygiene factor includes; job security, salary, organizational policies and working conditions whereas satisfiers are commonly referred to as motivators (Wang, Hom & Allen, 2017). They include growth opportunities and recognition. As a human resource, I was able to interact with the employee to determine their hygienic factor and motivators. The outcome of the result will help in improving the productivity of the organization. Personally, as a human resource manager, when there is job security such as full-time employment and adequate pay, it will be easy to do a given work with due diligence.

McClelland's Acquired Needs Theory

According to this theory, people have different priorities when it comes to their needs as some or either acquired or inherited. Based on his theory, there is a difference between a high achiever and low achiever (McClelland, 2015). From this theory, my own experience made me realize that I was a higher achiever. In my line of work, I usually ensure that I get the feedback on the policies that have been adopted to be working. With this, it is always within me to ensure that corrections are made for the policies to work (Lee, Back & Chan, 2015). These changes that are made ensures complete harmonization and having a favorable working environment.

Conclusion

According to the lesson learned during the course unit, I have realized that job satisfaction is determined by some factors. Failure to fulfill these factors may lead to a reduction in organizational performances. For an organization to increase job satisfaction, they have to know the motivating factors of employees. This will be easier to change the negative attitude of employees. Most importantly, I have realized that organizations never die a natural death. This means the fall of an organization is due to dissatisfied employees whose efforts led to low productivity hence increased losses. With the motivational theories, the management team should be able to learn the different ways in which employees can be motivated with an objective of improving the level of job satisfaction. Once employees are happy within their work environment, there is nothing that could stop them towards achieving greatness.

References

Acker, G. M. (2018). Self–care practices among social workers: do they predict job satisfaction and turnover intention?. Social Work in Mental Health, 1-15.

AlAzzam, M., AbuAlRub, R. F., & Nazzal, A. H. (2017, October). The relationship between work–family conflict and job satisfaction among hospital nurses. In Nursing forum (Vol. 52, No. 4, pp. 278-288).

Dabholkar, P. A., Mathur, A., & Wallace, E. S. (2015). What is important To Whom? the Effects of Career Stage on the Relationship Between Job Characteristics and Job Satisfaction of Salespersons. In Proceedings of the 1989 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 365-370). Springer, Cham.

De Vito, L., Brown, A., Bannister, B., Cianci, M., & Mujtaba, B. G. (2018). Employee motivation based on the hierarchy of needs, expectancy and the two-factor theories applied with higher education employees. IJAMEE.

Dugguh, S. I., & Dennis, A. (2014). Job satisfaction theories: Traceability to employee performance in organizations. IOSR journal of business and management, 16(5), 11-18.

Fernandez, S., & Moldogaziev, T. (2015). Employee empowerment and job satisfaction in the US Federal Bureaucracy: A self-determination theory perspective. The American review of public administration, 45(4), 375-401.

Freitas, V., & Duarte, M. (2017). Motivation at work: Case studies of Portuguese SMEs. Tékhne, 15(2), 88-99.

Homberg, F., McCarthy, D., & Tabvuma, V. (2015). A meta?analysis of the relationship between public service motivation and job satisfaction. Public Administration Review, 75(5), 711-722.

Johnson, J., Irizarry, M., Nguyen, N., & Maloney, P. (2018). Part 1: Foundational Theories of Human Motivation.

Judge, T. A., Weiss, H. M., Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D., & Hulin, C. L. (2017). Job attitudes, job satisfaction, and job affect: A century of continuity and of change. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 356.

Lee, J. S., Back, K. J., & Chan, E. S. (2015). Quality of work life and job satisfaction among frontline hotel employees: A self-determination and need satisfaction theory approach. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(5), 768-789.

McClelland, D. C. (2015). Achievement motivation theory. chair in human resources at the State University of New York–Buffalo and was faculty director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership there. Previously he was Research Professor of Management at Georgia State University. He has written over fifty books and over 135 other publications., 46.

McLeod, S. (2018). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Retrieved from

https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

Mullen, P. R., Malone, A., Denney, A., & Santa Dietz, S. (2018). Job stress, burnout, job satisfaction, and turnover intention among student affairs professionals. College Student Affairs Journal, 36(1), 94-108.

Skaalvik, E. M., & Skaalvik, S. (2017). Motivated for teaching? Associations with school goal structure, teacher self-efficacy, job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion. Teaching and Teacher Education, 67, 152-160.

Wang, D., Hom, P. W., & Allen, D. G. (2017). Coping with newcomer “Hangover”: How socialization tactics affect declining job satisfaction during early employment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 100, 196-210.

Yousef, D. A. (2017). Organizational commitment, job satisfaction and attitudes toward organizational change: A study in the local government. International Journal of Public Administration, 40(1), 77-88.