What’s wrong? Why do so many people find their work less than rewarding, less than satisfactory? If four to five is the happy hour, what’s going on from eight to four? Or to put in another way, why has “Thank God it’s Friday” come to be a catch phrase, a popular bumper sticker and even the name of a chain restaurant?
“We can’t eat for eight hours a day, drink for eight hours a day, sports and leisure for eight hours a day, all we can do for eight hours is work”. Work occupies more of our time than almost everything else. In fact, it occupies so much of our waking life that job satisfaction isn’t just a nice idea. If our life is to be fulfilling, it’s essential. Job satisfaction is one of the elements. But, how we want to create it so that it can be part of our life?
According to Wikipedia, Job satisfaction describes how content an individual is with his or her job. There are a variety of factors that can influence a person's level of job satisfaction; some of these factors include the level of pay and benefits, the perceived fairness of the promotion system within a company, the quality of the working conditions, leadership and social relationship, and the job itself. The happier people are within their job, the more satisfied they are said to be. Job satisfaction is not the same as motivation, although it is clearly linked. Other influences on satisfaction include the management style and culture, employee involvement, empowerment and autonomous work groups.
Job satisfaction is not just to know your job description, but the most important things is that we need to know what is our dreams, interests, skills and capability that we can contribute to our work and our own satisfaction. It is important to acknowledge and express our positive and negative feelings toward our work. If we come across some problems in our work, don’t let it bother us. As an alternative, try to be positive thinking. The more we accept our self, the more able we will be to change what needs to be changed. At the same time, look at our values, interests and satisfaction. Develop a variety of techniques to uncover our hidden potential.
Employers are not satisfied if they have: bad relations with their superiors, bad relations with their colleagues, lack technical supervision, bad company management, bad working conditions, and personal problems. Employers will be satisfied if: they are able to produce results, are acknowledged, have nice work, can be responsible, have a possibility for promotion. An employer can only work well if the basic needs (like the physiological needs as food and drink) are met. The higher in the pyramid (the more needs are fulfilled), the better an employer will produce. Therefore the leader should try to reach the employer at all levels of the "Maslow need pyramid".
Besides money, individual satisfaction also very important factor when the work is suited to our tastes. The greatest of satisfaction that our work can offer is by making contribution to those around us or by doing work that expresses our potential to the top, so we can experience more on job satisfaction. According to Cameron and Elusorr (1986), there are 5 strategies for increasing the degree to finding optimal satisfaction in our work.
- Zenning It – a strategy by using creativity on the job. Changing attitude towards work and it directly can change our quality of attention, and at the same time it will increase job satisfaction.
- Underwriting our true work – it is important to be clear about our goals, and continuously monitor progress to ensure that our dreams become reality. So we have to be more professional towards our dream, by planning, implementation, and evaluation plus an effective management of time, money, energy, and other resources.
- Learning and changing – it is the major source in satisfaction. So we have to develop areas of true expertise, continually introduce ourselves to areas that we are completely new.
- The inside job – individual who express their values in the workplace can impact everyone around them. So, we have to work at the same time to see our values more fully expressed in the context of our work.
- Optimal work – Perform for the best to the top level fulfillment. So we have to discover our dream, make major change, find an idol and work on our dream.
From now on, our satisfaction is not measured in terms of favorable or unfavorable circumstances. Our work has become a natural part of being alive. Picasso expressed this feeling very clearly: “Always put more of our self into our work until one day, we never know exactly which day it happens and we’re our work”. That’s when in Picasso’s memorable phase, our work becomes “The Ultimate Seduction” equal as “Thank God It’s Monday”. It is based on two simple principles:
- LOVE THE WORK WE DO; and
- DO THE WORK WE LOVE.
Wish our Monday will never be the same again!
p/s: Written by Syaharuddin Shah, Penang.
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