MBA management literature review paper

Introduction

Employee engagement has emerged as one of the most significant concept in the work place. Before reading Pink’s book, Drive, I would still live in the world of “Drive 2.0”. Most people consider money or other external rewards are the main motivator for employees, however, Pink overthrow the traditional thoughts and stated that the intrinsic motivation is the strongest motivator for employees (Pink 2009). Pink mentioned three main ideas about how to encourage the intrinsic motivation: Autonomy; Mastery; Purpose. I classify those as the contributions of employees’ job satisfaction. This time, the purpose is to discuss the relationship between job satisfaction and employee engagement, and to see how to maximize employee engagement by improving job satisfaction.

In a way, employees are considered as “customers” of the organizations, to meet their needs on autonomy, mastery and purpose, actually shows companies are trying to satisfy their employees. The following paragraphs will illustrate the reason of why Job satisfaction is the precondition to motivate employee engagement.

What is job satisfaction?

Job satisfaction usually mean employee attitudes, it indicate a positive feeling about a job, resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics (Stephen P). There are several aspects consist of the elements of job satisfaction: Respect, trust, Security, Healthy Environment, Career Path, Pay and Benefits, etc. Based on the SHRM report, employees consider “respect” as the most important factor in job satisfaction (University Alliance).

Relationship between Job Satisfaction and Employee Engagement

Why Job satisfaction and employee engagement tie together? Employee engagement is always stay in the high position, and there is always a ladder between engagement and job satisfaction, only when companies satisfied on the conditions of job satisfaction, then they can get the ladder to achieve the employee engagement.

How to improve job satisfaction?

-Pay Satisfaction

Pink mentioned that to motivate the employees, repetitive using external rewards may bring negative results. Pay employees market salaries, and take the extra money out of table (Pink 2009). This way can help organizations screen out people who is only seeking for high paid jobs, on the other hand, it also can ensure employees feel fair treat while working in the organization. Smarter companies may take advantages on payments, many companies paid more than the market price for attract more excellent talent, and another reason is to keep their employee turnover rate low. Only if employees satisfy with their paid, they would not have any thoughts on “unfair” treatment, to some degree, when employees get above average payment, employees are encouraged and tend to be more engaged.

The work itself

All in all, a satisfied employee does not equal to an engaged employee, but an unsatisfied employee can never turn to an engaged one.

References

Pink, D. H. (2009). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. (2007). Organizational behavior. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

University Alliance, (2014). How Important is Job Satisfaction in Today’s Workplace? http://www.villanovau.com/resources/hr/importance-of-job-satisfaction-in-the-workplace/#.VtJlsfkrKM8