Proven Ingredients for Job Satisfaction: Working Conditions

Determining whether you are satisfied with your job, whether it is right for you, and why that is important often involves personal intuition and circumstances. For some people, the right job might entail earning a certain salary. For others, the right job might involve having a supportive team.

• Increased profits
• Higher productivity
• Lower turnover
• Loyalty.

It’s no surprise that once a culture is established in a workplace, satisfaction can then be enhanced by added feelings of security. Security may arise from knowing you work for a viable company with long-term goals, insinuating feelings of belonging to that company (Berg, Grant, & Johnson, 2010)...

Communication can be extremely important to retaining levels of satisfaction, on both a personal and professional level.

It is exhibited in allowing employees to be open, collaborative, trustworthy, and even confrontational when needed.

Does the employee proactively seek out a manager for feedback? Does the employee go the extra mile to achieve tasks within a company? Does the employee try to stick to company goals, lead meetings, and ask questions when unsure about how to complete a task?

If yes, these employees...

Tied into increased motivation for employees, leadership, or influencing a group toward the achievement of a vision or set of goals can lead to job satisfaction by making sure communication and instruction of tasks is adequate and easily understood.

Employees can become more satisfied with their job when they know there is an individualized plan for them.

Beyond the formal nature of appraisals, if there is a path in place for growth, this can encourage employees to stay happier for longer.

While pay and benefits are not the only reason employees find satisfaction in their workplaces, research going back more than 30 years (e.g., Gerhart, 1987) shows that pay and benefits, at least according to how employees view themselves in their roles, has ranked high on lists of job satisfactio...

Job satisfaction can be defined as any combination of psychological, physiological, and environmental circumstances that cause a person to truthfully say that they are satisfied with a job.

Defining a company culture links to job satisfaction as it provides values and guidance about topics ranging from organizational goals to appropriate levels of interaction between employees.

Beyond monetary gain and being paid fairly for the work they do, job satisfaction for employees means that promotional policies are unambiguous and in line with their expectations.

Satisfaction at a job is not exclusively linked to pay, but to the perceived fairness of how one is recognize...