Discussion 5
Happy Doing Good? How Workers' Career Orientations and Job
Satisfaction Relate in Grassroots Human Services
Anna Haley-Lock
A B S T R A C T . Job satisfaction has long been a focus of human services managers and researchers. Yet recent trends in what workers want from their jobs and careers may challenge the current understand- ing of this important phenomenon. There is limited understanding, in particular, of human services workers' potentially diverse orientations toward their work and how those preferences relate to job satisfaction. These factors are considered using unique data from a population of domestic violence agencies. Results show that newer human services employees report valuing opportunities for entrepreneurialism at work more than their veteran coworkers, while senior staff state stron- ger preferences for jobs that facilitate work-life balance. Across all employees, a preference for work seen as advancing a social cause is positively linked to job satisfaction, while a desire for job autonomy is negatively related to satisfaction. Finally, the work-life balance prefer- ences only of newer staff are positively related to their satisfaction.
Anna Haley-Lock, PhD, is Assistant Professor at School of Social Work, University of Washington.
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the manuscript. This research was supported by funds from the Aspen Institute Nonprofit Sector Research Fund (grant #2001-NSRF-12).
Address correspondence to: Anna Haley-Lock, PhD, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, 4101 15th Ave. NE, Seattle, WA, 98105-6299 (E-mail: annahl @ u.washington.edu).
Journal of Community Practice, Vol. 16(2) 2008 Available online at http://com.haworthpress.com
© 2008 by The Haworth Press. All rights reserved. doi:10.1080/10705420801997963 143
144 JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PRACTICE
The article concludes with a discussion of strategies for managing employees' multidimensional preferences for work.
KEYWORDS. Human services employment, career orientation, job satisfaction
INTRODUCTION
Job satisfaction has long been a focus of researchers and managers in the human services and beyond. This is due to evidence linking job satisfaction to a range of workforce phenomena, including lower employee absenteeism, bum- out and tumover, as well as enhanced organizational commitment and perfor- mance. Many studies have linked employee job satisfaction, for example, to lower absenteeism, bumout, and tumover and to workers' enhanced organiza- tional commitment and performance (Freund, 2(X)5; Yoon & Thye, 2(X)2). In considering the consequences and predictors of job satisfaction in community- based human services agencies, scholarship has also spanned a range of occu- pations and fields, including staff in child welfare (Jayaratne & Chess, 1984), mental health services (Spector & Michaels, 1986), and other human services areas (Blankertz & Robinson, 1996; Manlove & Guzell, 1997).
While this prior work has generated important insights about how organizational, job, and worker characteristics correlate with workers' job satisfaction, it has given limited attention to the potential role of individuals' personal preferences for or orientations to the work they do. Studies that have investigated the relationships between job satisfaction and employee job commitment, organizational commitment, and career orientation have often framed individuals' affinities toward their employment unidimension- ally. Yet several scholars have asserted that human services workforces are changing in ways that suggest shifting and increasingly complex orientations to work (Gibelman, 1999; Light, 2003; Specht & Courtney, 1994). These observations highlight the importance of identifying a broad array of values that current human services employees hold about their work and clarifying potential divergences between newer and more senior staff. Finding varia- tion among individuals in their orientations to work would suggest a rela- tionship between worker preferences and job satisfaction that is considerably more complex than captured by research to date.
To address these gaps, this article is organized around two main ques- tions: How do newer human services workers differ, if at all, from their
Anna Haley-Lock 145
more experienced colleagues in their orientations to work? And how do these orientations—conceptualized here using Schein's (1993,1996) notion of career anchors—serve to facilitate or hinder their job satisfaction? These questions are answered using employee data drawn from a population of nonprofit domestic violence programs located in a midwestem metropolitan area. The article reviews literature on job satisfaction and career orienta- tions and pays specific attention to how these concepts may uniquely relate to grassroots human services environments. It presents the current study's methodological approach for investigating career orientation and job satis- faction, along with results from two sets of analyses. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for human services managers.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Job Satisfaction
Three central accounts for workers' satisfaction with their jobs have emerged in the literature: characteristics of organizations, jobs, and individ- uals (Glisson & Durick, 1988; Judge & Church, 2000). In human services agencies, significant explanatory roles have been found for many features of workplaces and jobs, including pay (Malherbe & Hendriks, 2004), super- vision quality and collégial support (Marriott, Sexton, & Staley, 1994), caseload size (Cole, Panchanadeswaran, & Daining, 2004), task attributes (Abu-Bader, 2000; Glisson & Durick, 1988), and whether or not a supervi- sory or administrative position is held (Poulin, 1995).
Of these three accounts of job satisfaction, research on the function of indi- vidual attributes represents what has been termed a dispositional perspective (George & Jones, 1997; Staw, Bell, & Clausen, 1986). As theorized by this approach, a combination of individual needs, values, and disposition— t̂hat is, personality traits—serve as key shapers of workers' experiences with employment in ways that are both relatively stable across time and indepen- dent of environmental infiuences. With respect to work values specifically, George and Jones (1997, p. 397) assert that they are "central aspects of the experience of work because they determine the meaning that work, jobs, and organizational experiences have for people. People try to make sense of their work experiences by judging how these experiences stack up against their work values." To the extent that encounters with work accord with individu- als' values related to work, employees are expected to feel more satisfied, as well as enjoy other positive attitudes about employment.
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The Multidimensional Conceptualization of Work Values
Past scholarship on the employment-related values or orientations of human services staff has enhanced our understanding of the relationships between these characteristics and such workforce outcomes as satisfac- tion, bumout, intent to stay, and tumover (see Mor Barak, Nissly, & Levin, 2001 for a review). Most of this research conceptualizes and mea- sures work values unidimensionally, however, rather than exploring mul- tiple potentially distinct attitudes that human services employees may bring to their jobs. A survey of the existing literature reveals such approximate concepts as professional values (Vandenberghe, 1999), professional commitment (Lee & Ashforth, 1993), career orientation (Ewalt, 1991), personal values (Blankertz & Robinson, 1996), and value conflict (Jayaratne & Chess, 1984). Blankertz and Robinson's (1996) attention to personal values incorporates multiple facets but focuses on workers' opinions about a specific service modality (psychosocial rehabilitation). Ewalt's (1991, p. 216) career orientation variable is more generalizable across employment settings but is framed narrowly as a "commitment to development of a career path rather than to any specific job or organization." Should individuals possess many and divergent ori- entations to work, the relationship between those attitudes and their satis- faction is likely to be complex and, to date, insufficiently understood or managed.
The literature on career anchors offers one way of conceptualizing multiple facets of individuals' affinities toward work (DeLong, 1982; Schein, 1996; Bonner, 1998). Defined as the set of diverse preferences individuals have for the nature of the work they do, career anchors are asserted to exist prior to entry into full-time employment and then evolve with time and experience. This feature of career anchors—a theorized tra- jectory of change—distinguishes the career anchor approach from much dispositional research that treats work values as highly temporally stable within individuals. Scholars have identified an array of anchors reflecting workers' different preferences and have found variation in the types and intensity of anchors held by individuals working not only within the same organization but also within the same occupation (DeLong, 1982; Schein, 1996; Bonner, 1998).
Career Anchors and Employment Trends
Evidence on trends regarding what workers want from employment and what employment provides suggests that considering the role of
Anna Haley-Lock 147
individuals' work values may be important for optimizing their attitudes about their jobs and organizations. Arthur and Rousseau (1994) suggest that careers are increasingly being constructed through a series of stops across multiple organizations and fields rather than in long-term associa- tions with a single employer. The authors distinguish these two paths as the new boundaryless career and historic organizational career. Pursuing boundaryless employment trajectories creates the need for workers to stay current in their field's knowledge and skills, as it implies frequent job and organization changes as well as a more competitive marketplace for labor (Bonner, 1998).
At the same time, several scholars have observed that American work- ers are increasingly seeking to fulfill "expressive values" at work through tasks—and whole jobs—that allow them to exercise a wider range of their talents and interests (Yankelovich, 1994, p. 20; Tilly, 1996a). Scholarship in work-life conflict and balance, finally, continues to reveal many workers' need to balance paid work with caregiving and community obligations (Edwards & Rothbard, 2005; Voydanoff, 2004).
Research on human services employment specifically has sought to illuminate some of the effects of chronic resource limitations and mis- sion orientation on the nature and experience of work in these settings (Light, 2003; Loseke, 1992). In spite of comparatively modest pay and demanding working conditions, human services organizations are often able to attract good employee candidates due to the "compensating dif- ferentials" that work in these settings can provide (England, Budig, & Folbre, 2002, p. 458); that is, opportunities to have a social impact through one's job and to enjoy relatively flexible and informal work- place conditions meet the goals and needs of many members of the con- temporary workforce.
As several scholars have recently noted, however, the human services workforce is not uniformly motivated by the desire to fulfill a "calling" through employment (Gibelman, 1999; Jacobson, 2(X)1; Specht & Courtney, 1994). There are signs that, even in grassroots agencies, newer staff may be increasingly professional in orientation. Both Gibelman (1999) and Specht and Courtney (1994) have observed a movement in the field toward private practice, a relatively entrepreneurial shift. At the same time, traditional human services agencies are increasingly hiring non- human-services trained leadership, while the for-profit sector's presence in human services provision continues to grow. Both trends are leading to a growing exposure of staff in grassroots agencies to more bureaucratized and businesslike modes of operation (Gibelman, 1999).
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To examine the potential multiple dimensions of career orientation held by human services staff and their relationships to job satisfaction, five of Schein's (1996) anchors were considered in this study. These five—dedication to a cause, lifestyle, autonomy, managerial competence, and entrepreneurial creativity—were selected for their close theoretical correspondence to recent trends in employment generally and within the human services in particular. Schein's (1996) "dedication to a cause" is perhaps the most clearly relevant of the anchor concepts for human services workers. Schein suggests that individuals strongly motivated by this anchor seek and are fulfilled by employment that allows them to have an impact on larger social issues. He notes, however, the importance of distinguishing between potential orientations to service, on the one hand, and occupations that are associated with service delivery, sometimes termed callings, on the other: "Not everyone in a service-oriented occupa- tion is motivated by the desire to serve. Some doctors, lawyers, ministers, and social workers may be anchored in . . . autonomy . . . ; some may want to become general managers" (Schein, 1996, p. 45).
Reflecting a growing body of research in the work-life balance field, individuals who strongly value lifestyle prefer employment that facili- tates their ability to balance employment and nonwork responsibilities. Individuals anchored substantially in "autonomy" seek freedom to complete tasks when and how they choose (Schein, 1993). Autonomy concepts are an established focus of organizational scholarship on task characteristics and job enrichment (embodied in the work of Hackman & Oldham, 1975, 1976). What distinguishes Schein's autonomy concept is its focus on preferences that the individual worker brings to the employment situation rather than on any particular qualities of the work itself.
Schein's (1996) managerial competence and entrepreneurial creativity anchors are less intuitive as facilitators of job satisfaction in grassroots human services settings, many of which continue to be relatively small, flat in structure, and resource-limited (Hyde, 1992; Loseke, 1992; Smith & Lipsky, 1993). Individuals who are significantly anchored in manage- rial competence strongly value hierarchical advancement opportunities and are particularly motivated by positions from which they can lead others (Bonner, 1998). Schein (1996) portrays management-focused indi- viduals as preferring to pursue increasingly high-level positions with escalating impact on organizational success. Finally, those motivated by entrepreneurial creativity seek to create new programs or significantly reshape existing ones according to their own vision. The process of forming
Anna Haley-Lock 149
new ideas and putting them initially into practice rather than maintaining them over time is a strong drive for such workers.
RESEARCH METHODS
Hypotheses
Informed by the literature reviewed here, two sets of hypotheses were developed for this study. The first anticipates differences between more newly arrived and senior employees in their ratings of the five career anchors. The second set makes predictions about the relationships between the five career anchors and job satisfaction.
Scholarship on the shifting work orientations of incoming human services workers suggests potential divergence in the career orientations of newer and more veteran staff. New arrivals to these agencies were accordingly predicted to value entrepreneurial creativity and managerial competence incrementally more than their established colleagues (Gibelman, 1999). Similarly, work that human service facilitates work-life balance and provides other kinds of flexibility through task autonomy were expected to be more strongly valued by newer workers given research on workforce trends toward work-life balance. Finally, "dedication to a cause" was anticipated to be equally embraced by the two groups because the mission orientation of domestic violence and other grassroots human services programs continues to be a primary attraction to employment in such settings (Light, 2003).
The diverse career orientations of human services staff were, in tum, theorized to have either facilitative or limiting relationships to their job satisfaction in these settings. Given research on the compensating differ- entials presented by human services work—that is, such nonmonetary benefits as being able to contribute to a social cause and having access to scheduling flexibility and task autonomy—workers' valuing of the career anchors of dedication to a cause, lifestyle, and autonomy were expected to be positively related to their job satisfaction. In contrast, given the docu- mented collective organizational cultures and limited hierarchies common to many domestic violence programs, individuals' affinities toward the anchors of managerial competence and entrepreneurialism were predicted to be negatively related to satisfaction. These agency attributes were anticipated to constrain workers' access to opportunities for both manage- ment experience and independent entrepreneurial innovation.
150 JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PRACTICE
Research Participants and Instruments
The study targeted the entire population of 25 nonprofit human services organizations in the Chicago area that were focused on delivering domestic violence intervention programming. The lack of variation in the organizational type (small, grassroots agency in a single field of practice) and geographic location (one metropolitan area) provides helpful controls for a range of unmeasured factors extemal to the organizations, such as differences in local labor markets and agency norms that pose chal- lenges to many organizational studies. But as a result of these intentional controls, any observed contrasts between newer and more senior employ- ees, as well as the relationships found between employee career anchors and job satisfaction, may not fully apply to other workers and settings.
At each agency, data were obtained on individual demographic and job characteristics, career orientations, and social networks using a self- administered survey distributed to all employees and on organizational demographics, human resource practices, and employee performance from a structured interview with a head administrator. Twenty-two of the 25 organizations permitted data collection from employees. One site, which was used to pilot the instruments, is excluded from the analyses presented here.
Data collection was completed between December 2000 and June 2001. Surveys were distributed to 701 employees across 21 agencies who were assured that their study participation would be confidential. Up to three reminder letters were mailed to nonrespondents at two-week intervals. The final employee response rate was 68%. Data from eight participating executive directors were excluded from the analyses presented here given the structurally unique nature of their positions that was expected to distin- guish both their career orientations and job satisfaction.
Measures
The dependent variable in the present study is employee job satisfac- tion. The explanatory variables include five career anchors capturing some of the individuals' preferences for the work they do—dedication to a cause, lifestyle, autonomy, managerial competence, and entrepre- neurial creativity. The relationships between the independent and dependent variables were examined with Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analyses. In addition, 10 control variables were added given their anticipated relationships to both workers' career anchors and job satisfaction.
Anna Haley-Lock 151
Research on predictors of job satisfaction has employed different conceptualizations of this variable. Some studies have treated the phe- nomenon of satisfaction as broad and unidimensional, while others have focused more narrowly on satisfaction with intrinsic, organizational, and extrinsic aspects of employment (Koeske, Kirk, Koeske, & Rauktis, 1994). The present analyses use a framing of satisfaction that corre- sponds with the first concept and with Koeske et al.'s (1994) notion of organizational satisfaction. It is comprised of three items, each measured with a 5-point Likert scale, that asked respondents to rate their satisfac- tion with their job, their organization, and their colleagues (see Appendix A for item wordings). The items together yield a Cronbach's alpha of 0.77. The variable has been calculated by saving the scores from a Principal Components Analysis, which rendered it appropriate for linear regression.
The study examined the relationship between job satisfaction and five career anchors. Respondents were asked questions drawn from Schein (1996) and Bonner (1998) that had them rate on a 7-point scale the importance to them of job qualities aligning with dedication to a cause, lifestyle, autonomy, managerial competence, and entrepreneurial creativity (three to four questions were asked per anchor). As with job satisfaction, these variables were calculated by saving the factor scores from a Principal Components Analysis to make them suitable for linear regression. An oblimin nonorthogonal factor rotation procedure with Kaiser normalization was used given the likelihood that the anchors would be correlated (Costello & Osborne, 2005; West, 1991). Cron- bach's alphas range from 0.59 to 0.85, with items loading highly upon their respective factors. Item wordings and results of reliability tests are provided in Appendix A.
Ten variables are included in the regression analyses to control for the likely effects of respondents' demographic traits on the relationships between their career anchor ratings and job satisfaction. Age is controlled for given Schein's (1993) assertion that individuals' anchors evolve with age, and evidence that age and job satisfaction are associated (Lambert, Cluse-Tolar, Pasupuleti, Hall, & Jenkins, 2005). Workers' college educa- tion is controlled for the same reasons (Abu-Bader, 2000). Sex (coded 1 if male) and race (coded 1 if non-White) are controlled for given evidence that women and persons of color may be more satisfied than their male or white counterparts with identical employment conditions (Hodson, 1989; Miller, 1980). A binary variable for those living with children (coded 1 if yes) is included for the same reason. Full-time work experience is
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included to account for potential influences of career length on work pref- erences and satisfaction, paralleling prior findings for age (Lambert et al., 2005; Schein, 1993). To avoid problems of multicoUinearity from age and full-time work experience, a substitute variable was created for experi- ence that represents the proportion of years a respondent has worked full- time since tuming 18 years of age (Bridges & Villemez, 1991).
Critics of research that focuses on individual-level explanations for job attitudes like satisfaction note that such "dispositional" work fails to account for situationai factors that may overwhelm or even drive the effects of individual attributes (Davis-Blake & Pfeffer, 1989). Accord- ingly, this study addresses some situationai conditions by incorporating into analyses several variables related to respondents' jobs. A dichoto- mous variable for administrative position status (coded as 1 if a respon- dent held the title of executive director, director, or assistant or associate director) is included based on previous research indicating that workers holding supervisory or other administrative positions were generally more satisfied (Poulin, 1995). Holding a full-time position was controlled for given evidence that part-time and full-time job quality varies in ways that may shape worker satisfaction (Author, under review; Tilly, 1996a & b). Hourly wage is included based on its established rela- tionship to workers' job satisfaction (Glisson & Durick, 1988; Malherbe & Hendriks, 2004).
RESULTS
Table 1 summarizes the basic characteristics of the participating orga- nizations. Staff sizes ranged from 5 to 98 with a mean of 51 employees. Total expenses for 2001 reported in agencies' 1RS Form 990 were between $197,311 and $3,080,446 with a median of $1.3 million. The presence of some midlevel coordinator positions as well as multiple agency sites in this grassroots population suggests opportunities for worker mobility, though only about one-third of respondents reported holding one or more previous jobs within the same organization (Table 1). Forty-four percent of employees had been in their current jobs for less than 1 year; just under one-third were relatively new (less than 1 year) to both their jobs and agencies.
Table 2 offers a correlation matrix for all explanatory variables. Because of the fairly large and significant bivariate correlations found between the administration position and hourly wage variables, as well as
Anna Haley-Lock 153
TABLE 1. Summary of agency and workforce descriptive data
Variables
Founding year Annual expenses Program sites Paid staff size Jobs at coordinator level Staff with college degree Staff with graduate degree Staff with job tenure of more
than 1 year Staff who have heid multipie
jobs in current agency Staff with first jobs at agency,
heid less than 1 year
M
1982 $1,366,716
2.81 38.86 10.0%
71.13% 25.90%
66%
35%
30%
SD
5.60 $741,359
1.72 23.60
9.0%
Range
1973 to 1995 $197,311 to 3,080,446
1 to 6 5 to 98
0.0 to 40.0%
Note. Organizational n = 21; employee respondent n = 477. M = mean; SD = standard deviation.
between the career anchors of managerial competence and entrepreneurial creativity, multicoUinearity diagnostic data were examined for all the models. A review of results obtained for the two regression models found that the Variance Inflation Factor and Tolerance scores, two standard indicators of multicoUinearity were all within widely accepted bounds (the highest VIF level across the two models was 1.65 and the lowest tolerance was 0.606).
Table 3 reports the descriptive statistics for all the variables in the study as well as the results of comparisons of means between two tenure groups: those holding their first jobs at their agencies for less than a year and those employed at their agencies for 1 year or more (in either their first or subsequent positions). The newer staff are significantly younger (an average of 34 versus 41 years old for more senior staff) and are less likely to be in long-term relationships, to be living with children, and to hold administrative positions (Table 3). The wages of newly arrived workers are also statistically significantly lower than more veteran col- leagues, though practically speaking this difference was modest, at an average of $13.40 versus $14.89. Given Schein's (1993) discussion ofthe evolving nature of career anchors over experience and education, it is notable that the two groups did not diverge in their extent of prior full-time employment or college degree completion.
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156 JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PRACTICE
As predicted, newly arrived workers value entrepreneurial creativity significantly more than their more senior counterparts (a mean of 4.95 versus 4.68 on a 7-point scale), and both groups report comparable dedication to a cause. Contrary to expectation, however, newer staff report lower prioritization of lifestyle aspects of their work than employ- ees who have been at their agencies longer (5.11 versus 6.20; Table 3). Also unexpectedly, the two groups of workers exhibit no significant difference in their valuing of managerial competence or autonomy. The level of job satisfaction reported by newer and more veteran employees, finally, is not statistically significantly different.
Table 4 summarizes the results for two regression models analyzing the relationships between five employee career anchors and job satisfac- tion. Model 1 includes workers whose tenure at their current job or
TABLE 4. Summary of OLS regression results for job satisfaction
Variables
Controls Age Non-White Male College degree Full-time work experience In a relationship Living with children Administrative position Fuii-time position Houriy wage
Career anchors Dedication to a cause Lifestyie Autonomy Entrepreneurial creativity Managerial competence F p-value adjusted F^
Model 1 : Respondents employed
1 + Years (n = 327)
B=
0.013 -0.054
0.293 0.095
-0.005 0.128 0.091
-0.175 -0.016
0.013
0.324 0.031
-0.128 -0.067
.040
S.E.
(0.004) (0.121) (0.255) (0.125) (0.202) (0.114) (0.112) (0.177) (0.020) (0.013)
(0.053) (0.056) (0.056) (0.059) (0.059)
4.755 0.000 0.162
Model 2: Respondents employed
< 1
B^
0.004 0.036
-0.178 0.049
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0.333 0.214
-0.275 -0.107
0.057
Year ( n = 139)
S.E.
(0.011) (0.227) (0.486) (0.270) (0.403) (0.214) (0.229) (0.401) (0.220) (0.019)
(0.113) (0.123) (0.120) (0.122) (0.124)
1.902 0.031 0.104
Notes: ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.10; ^Coefficients are unstandardized.
Anna Haley-Lock 157
agency was 1 year or more, while Model 2 was completed with workers in their jobs and agencies for less than 1 year. As expected, workers who are more "dedicated to a cause" exhibit higher levels of job satis- faction (Table 4). The lifestyle hypothesis received only partial support, however: only among newcomers is this anchor significantly and posi- tively associated with satisfaction. This second finding is striking given the newer group's significantly lower mean on lifestyle orientation as well as their lower rates for being in long-term relationships and living with children (Table 3). Also unexpected was the significant negative relationship found between the autonomy anchor and satisfaction in both of the models. Finally, neither management competence nor entre- preneurial creativity is statistically related to job satisfaction for either worker group.
The cross-sectional nature of these data limit the interpretations about causal order that can be made of these analyses; that is, it is impossible to confirm whether the findings from Model 2 reveal that a new type of workforce is coming to grassroots agencies or instead that the new arrivals are simply in the first phase of a longer-term human services career.
Coefficients for control variables are largely nonsignificant across the two models, rendering factors such as college education, administrator status, and wage level—all previously found to be related to job satisfac- tion—apparently peripheral to workers' happiness in these settings. For the more veteran group, age is positively associated with their satisfac- tion. For newer arrivals, being in a relationship is positively linked to satisfaction, a notable effect given these employees' significantly lower rate of being in long-term relationships.
Both regression models exhibit limited power to account for workers' job satisfaction, with adjusted r-squared values of 0.162 and 0.104 in Models 1 and 2, respectively (Table 4). Thus, while the analyses shed new light on how distinct dimensions of career orientation relate to job satisfaction, there remain contributors to this phenomenon that are not captured here.
DISCUSSION
The study reported here is intended to inform both theory and practice related to grassroots agency workforces in several respects. It offers new empirical evidence for differences in the career orientations of recently
158 JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PRACTICE
arrived versus more veteran employees, as have been asserted by other scholars (e.g., Gibelman, 1999; Light, 2003; Specht & Courtney, 1994). It also provides a detailed statistical examination of how five facets of workers' career orientation relate, in varying ways, to their job satisfaction.
With respect to differences between "old" and "new" employees, newer employees' significantly greater valuing of entrepreneurial creativity accords with recent claims that the human services workforce is becoming more professionally oriented or business-oriented (Gibelman, 1999; Specht & Courtney, 1994). The significantly lower value that newer workers place on lifestyle balance is striking in light of evidence for workers' growing desire for jobs that facilitate work-life balance (e.g., Barnett, Gareis, & Carr, 2005; Barnett & Hall, 2001; Tilly, 1996a). This finding is consistent, however, with the higher rates reported by more veteran workers' of living with children and being in a relationship. More established employees appear to need and, in tum, want employment that accommodates work-life balance. The comparability between the two groups in their affinity toward autonomy, dedication to a cause, and man- agement—as well as their similar levels of job satisfaction—suggests appreciable similarities among this workforce in employment values and experiences.
The analyses of relationships between the five career anchor types and job satisfaction yielded both expected and surprising findings. As pre- dicted, dedication to a cause is significantly and positively correlated with job satisfaction among both newly arrived and more senior employees. The lifestyle anchor is significantly positively related to satisfaction among newcomers, as anticipated. Lifestyle orientation is unexpectedly nonsignificant for veteran employees, however. This result is more note- worthy given the significantly greater value that veteran staff place on having employment that facilitates work-life balance and their signifi- cantly higher rates of living with children and being in committed relationships (reflecting both desires and needs for work-life complemen- tarity; see Table 3). The regression analyses reveal, then, that though newly arrived staff may on average desire and need "lifestyle" accommo- dation less than their senior peers, work-life balance considerations are nonetheless important for their job satisfaction. For managers, these results suggest that staff job satisfaction may best be enhanced by attending to both employees' needs and wants rather than focusing on only one of these areas.
The negative coefficient for autonomy among both groups was also unanticipated. The more strongly workers value job task-related autonomy.
Anna Haley-Lock 159
the less satisfied they report being in these settings. This finding may indicate that the domestic violence programs studied in fact provide rela- tively limited freedom around how and when work is done. Alternately, what autonomy is available might be incompatible with the preferences of workers valuing autonomy as this study measured it. It remains unclear whether these results are the product of workplaces that impose many restrictions on the completion of job tasks or instead some other mismatch between what workers seek and what they find with respect to autonomy. Additional research is needed to clarify this issue.
The unexpected lack of significant relationships between the managerial and entrepreneurial anchors and job satisfaction among either worker group is also noteworthy, particularly since newer workers value entre- preneurial aspects of work. Whether managerial and entrepreneurial inclinations are ultimately fulfilled in these grassroots employment settings or go unmet is unclear from these results. Neither career anchor appears to be relevant to job satisfaction, however.
CONCLUSION
Findings from this study bear several implications for grassroots management practice. Whether they imply a cohort or career phase effect, these results suggest that administrators who manage exclusively to work- ers' mission dedication and who take limited or no account of their other job-related values are likely not optimizing their workers' job satisfac- tion. Administrators would do well to appeal to workers' desires for life- style balance by cultivating aspects of job and workplace design that facilitate lifestyle-based satisfaction. Based on the present results, such an approach should pay off especially well among newer hires, while being nonetheless relevant to the larger proportion of senior employees who have work-life balance demands. Grassroots leaders would also be wise to address the issue of autonomy: first, by clarifying the nature of the autonomy some of their workers seek, and second, by identifying ways of fulfilling this preference while maintaining compliance with their organi- zations' internal and extemal operating requirements. Additional research is needed to understand whether and how workers' career orientations change over time. To the extent that workers hold a range of anchors and that those anchors evolve, managers wishing to increase workforce satis- faction may require more effective tools to track and address employees' fluctuating preferences.
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Appendix A. Items used in composite measures
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Index and items
Dependent variable: Job satisfaction (a = 0.77)
Independent variables: Career anchors
Dedication to a cause (a = 0.67)
Lifestyie (a = 0.76)
Autonomy (a = 0.69)
Entrepreneurial creativity (a = 0.59)
Managerial competence (a = 0.84)
"In general, I am satisfied with my job."
"In gênerai, I like working for this organization." "In general, I iike working with the people here."
"I have sought a career in which I couid be of service to
others."
"I prefer to be abie to use my skiils and taients to promote
an important cause."
"1 am most fulfilied in my work when I have been able to use my talents to help others."
"I wouid only change jobs if the new job would not compromise my ability to pursue personal and family concerns."
"I am wiiiing to sacrifice some amount of career opportu- nity to stabilize my total life situation."
"Balancing the demands of my personai and professional iives is more important to me than achieving a higher- level position."
"I have sought out work opportunities that would minimize interference with my personal or family concerns."
"A career that aiiows me a lot of freedom to choose my work, hours, and so forth is important to me."
"Having a job that allows me not to be constrained by the ruies of an organization is important to me."
"I am most fuifiiied in my work when I am free to define my own tasks, schedules and procedures."
"I am always looking for ideas that wouid permit me to start my own program or project."
"I wouid like to develop my own practice or organization." "I often try out new ideas on my job." "Being in a management position is important to me." "Being able to supervise, influence and lead people is
important to me." "I am most fuifiiied in my work when I have been abie to
integrate and manage the efforts of others." "I prefer a position that gives me the opportunity to
deveiop competence in my own tasks and supervise other people."