TITLE

Employee satisfaction and productivity.

INTRODUCTION
We will investigate the importance of employee satisfaction on productivity in the workplace. We will argue that employee satisfaction strongly influences productivity. We decided to choose this topic because we found it interesting after finishing the course of Introduction to Business Organization the previous year, thus we decided to carry out an investigation concerning these two topics.

QUESTION
What is the importance of employee satisfaction on productivity?

OBJECTIVES
Our aim is to prove that when employees are satisfied with their job, they become more productive. In other words when employees are highly motivated, have good morale at work, and work more efficiently, we expect this to have a positive effect on productivity.

PREVIOUS LITERATURE REVIEW

Job satisfaction has been defined as a pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of ones job; an affective reaction to ones job; and an attitude towards ones job.

Julia Muriel Kimonidou, Maria Michael

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. Job design aims to enhance job satisfaction and performance, methods include job rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment. Other influences on satisfaction include the management style and culture, employee involvement, empowerment and autonomous work groups. Job satisfaction is a very important attribute which is frequently measured by organizations. Productivity is a measurement of the efficiency of production, taking the form of a ratio of the output of goods and services to the input of factors of production. Labor productivity takes account of inputs of employee hours worked; capital productivity takes account of inputs of machines or land; and marginal productivity measures the additional output gained from an additional unit of input. Weiss defines job satisfaction is an attitude but points out that researchers should clearly distinguish the objects of cognitive evaluation which are affect (emotion), beliefs and behaviors. This definition suggests that we form attitudes towards our jobs by taking into account our feelings, our beliefs, and our behaviors. According to Roger J. Best, successful efforts in increasing employee satisfaction appear to enhance overall firm productivity, which is subsequently rewarded by investors through higher equity values. Ali Ahsan concluded that employee satisfaction serves as a stimulus for the organizational quality and productivity. His study provides support for some key factors serving as stimulators for employee satisfaction. These factors are pay, job interest, leadership (encouragement,

Julia Muriel Kimonidou, Maria Michael

feedback, and performance appraisal), career growth, working environment, broadly defined job responsibility, organizational objectives and trainings. These factors if not provided, result in dissatisfaction of employees. In addition to this some new factors have been identified which were not made part of the survey initially but came across on employees feedback. These factors include government policies, transport, good innovative projects, company strength, social and economic values, political instability, natural disaster, location, vendor management, weather, and family issues. Campion, Michael A. and Higgs, A. Catherine A concluded that teambased workforce can increase both productivity and employee satisfaction. But to realize those gains, organizations must take care in designing their teams at the outset. Otherwise, they risk alienating employees, who may view the move to teams as just another passing management fad. Personally, we strongly believe that job satisfaction does indeed lead to a higher productivity.

METHODOLOGY
This research focuses on employee satisfaction which in turn causes higher productivity, or dissatisfaction that leads to lower productivity. We are going to prepare a questionnaire with 5 questions for the employees to answer, which will be quite straightforward and easy to answer. This questionnaire highlights the factors that are source of satisfaction. The most common way of measurement is the use of rating scales where employees report their reactions to their jobs. Questions relate to rate of the overall satisfaction, work responsibilities, sense of encouragement and achievement, level of

Julia Muriel Kimonidou, Maria Michael

support, communication and co-workers. The questionnaire will be designed to ask to rate satisfaction on 1-5 scale: 5 being "extremely satisfied". The questions used in the surveying tool, concerns general level of satisfaction of employees. It is ensured that questions are easy to understand, short and less time taking. A sample of this questionnaire is included at the bottom of the methodology as to have a clearer view of its structure. Before distributing the questionnaires, each individual is given understanding of the research. We will visit an organization which is based on promotions and sales, where it will be easier to measure the productivity of each employee selected for the sample. To measure the productivity it will be a more difficult task, we will try to obtain the amount of sales that the employee has made within the year. It is important to take this information for the whole year because it will rule out as much as possible any external, negative, or personal effects that might have affected their productivity. Therefore the collection of data for the whole year becomes more reliable. We will go to the organization in the morning to give out questionnaires when the employees arrive to work and tell them that after their shift we will return to collect the questionnaires. Before distributing them, we will ensure employees that the questionnaires will be anonymous in other words their names, department and name of the organization will not be shown on our article. We will visit three departments to give out the questionnaires, five employees of each department i.e. a total of fifteen questionnaires. The same afternoon we will go back and collect our data after they have of course answered. After collecting our data we will be using probabilities and statistics to analyze our research. This should lead us to make our own conclusions on our research question.

Julia Muriel Kimonidou, Maria Michael

Sample Employee Satisfaction Questionnaire Choosing 1 means being dissatisfied and 5 being extremely satisfied. 1. I feel my department gets support and teamwork from other areas within the Company. 1 2 3 4 5

2. Overall I am very satisfied with my job at Company ABC. 1 2 3 4 5

3. My manager clearly defines my job responsibilities. 1 2

Julia Muriel Kimonidou, Maria Michael

3 4 5

4. My manager/supervisor encourages high achievement by reducing the fear of failure. 1 2 3 4 5

5. My manager/supervisor clearly communicates what is expected of me. 1 2 3 4 5

REFERENCES
1. Academy of Management Proceedings; 2009, p1-6, 6p 2. Brief, 1998 cited in Weiss, H. M. (2002). Deconstructing job satisfaction: separating evaluations, beliefs and affective experiences. 3. http://faculty.ucmo.edu/econfinpapers/wpaper/wp0806.pdf 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_satisfaction Julia Muriel Kimonidou, Maria Michael

5. HRMagazine; Oct95, Vol. 40 Issue 10, p101, 4p 6. Human Resource Management Review, 12, 173-194, p. 174 7. Total Quality Management Vol. 17, No. 10, 12611271, December 2006 8. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence; Dec2006, Vol. 17 Issue 10, p1261-1271, 11p, 3 charts, 2 diagrams

Julia Muriel Kimonidou, Maria Michael