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Employee Satisfaction – Necessary, But Not Quite Sufficient

Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 at 07:52PM by Registered CommenterRobert Cenek | Comments8 Comments

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Fortune’s list of 100 Top Employers is a perennial attention grabber for me. It’s thorough. It’s titillating. It’s outright entertaining to read about the “over the top” perks offered by America’s most sought after employers.

This special issue goes far in fueling the conventional thinking that happy or satisfied employees drive higher levels of operating performance. The most recent academic endorsement of that theme comes from Knowledge at Wharton, which referenced an interesting piece of research by Professor Alex Edmans showing a strong causative relationship between employee satisfaction and share price appreciation.

Employee motivation and happiness on the job are very complex. With each passing year, new research adds a thicker veneer of esotery to the topic. A subscription to the Academy of Management Journal or Personnel Psychology will prove the point. Wading through this research quickly makes one glassy eyed. To stay “grounded,” I must remind myself that employee satisfaction is important, but at the end of the day it’s only a necessary – and not a sufficient condition for high levels of employee engagement.

Employee happiness and satisfaction are passive mental states. One can be very happy on the job —- so happy that he or she spends the bulk of the day at the water cooler or in a side hall chit chatting with co-workers. The employee may be happy; but are they engaged and committed to the enterprise?

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Reader Comments (8)

You will be happy to note that a recent meta analysis by Nathan Bowling of Wright State University was recently published that showed little, if no, causal relationship between satisfaction and performance.

I'm hoping to meet with him this week to get more details. In the meantime I submit Scott McArthur's post on it...

http://mcarthursrant.blogspot.com/2007/12/employee-engagement-bowled-out.html

I'll let you know what I find out.
January 15, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterPaul Hebert
The research by Nathan Bowling suggests that much of the effort expended on making employees happy and raising their morale so that they will be more productive is wasted because, as Paul mentions in the previous comment about this, the one doesn't lead to the other - it's just that both are commonly present in the same person. The lesson, then, isn't to try to make your employees productive by making them happy, but just to find generally well-adjusted, happy people to bring on as employees - they will likely be productive, as well. Imagine that.
January 16, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterJim Stroup
This was a good post to get me thinking.

I wonder if satisfaction needs to be instrumental. Do we want satisfied employees for more profit?

I don't want satiated but I would like to see a general level of satisfaction with lots of ebbs and flows so that we just are not drinking at the water cooler and stating how great everything is while doing nothing.

Without some overall baseline level of work satisfaction I am not sticking around in the long term but work does not always have to be a HAPPY place while we throw FISH around the office.
January 16, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterDavid Zinger
Didn't the Hawthorne Experiment that most of learned about through our college HR courses indicate that there are numerous stimuli that can affect the productivity in workers? I believe in this case it was turning the lighting down on the factory floor that caused an increase in productivity.

One would think that a number of stimuli in the workplace could affect both the job satisfaction as well as the productivity quotient in the company. In your example of the employee who hangs out by the water cooler all day long and might feel happy at their job - I and many others would feel the opposite and would feel that we've accomplished nothing by such inactivity towards work-related goals. Eventually, you have to feel satisfied through your accomplishments and contributions made towards your department, division, company, etc.

I agree with your points - it is much more complex than a simple theory would dictate.
January 16, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterAlan
Paul: thanks for the tip on the great article! The article confirms my personal observations and experiences over the past 3 decades.

Jim: Barry Staw published some research probably 10 years ago dealing with the happy and productive worker. Professor Smith at Bowling Green also performed some research in this vein. Both addressed the notion that work life is part of our overall "iceberg." We all bring a particular level of mental adjustment to the job. That speaks volumes as to why I have consistently used psychometric instruments as part of the selection process.

David: Your comments bring a dose of reality to the topic at hand. It's not realistic to believe that folks are going to be continuously and perpetually giving each other "high fives" in the workplace.

Alan: Your keen insights brought back to life for me some of the solid thinking underlying David McClelland's work dealing with achievement.

Thanks all! Invite others to chime in...

Robert Edward
January 16, 2008 | Registered CommenterRobert Cenek
"One can be very happy on the job —- so happy that he or she spends the bulk of the day at the water cooler or in a side hall chit chatting with co-workers."

Excellent point. Reminds me of Hiring Managers that think just because a candidate worked at their last company for 15 years they must be a better hire than someone with 2 or 3 years at their last company. The former could have spent 14.5 years helping to put their former employer out of business!
January 17, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterHR Wench
HR Wench:

How true!!! So many organizations miss the point that you just made. Longevity should not be an automatic plus.
January 17, 2008 | Registered CommenterRobert Cenek
Here is a link to an interesting article in INC about a firm named Reel Precision Manufacturing that took its "eye off the ball" in a single minded pursuit of creating a nirvana-like workplace.

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080201/paradise-lost.html

robert edward cenek
January 30, 2008 | Registered CommenterRobert Cenek

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