Job satisfaction in a blender

I have a new blender/food processor thing. It is very cool and looks like something from outer space. The last time I bought a food processor was when my son was a baby and I decided to be a crunchy granola mom and make my own baby food. My son is now older than I was when I bought the thing, which means the food processor is very old and leaks all over the place when you try to use it. Ergo a new one is good.

But the best part about the new one is that I didn’t have to buy it, I got it as an award for something I did at work. I am all in favour of awards – especially when they are given to me. However, I know that my bosses have a hidden agenda. They think that giving me an award will make me work harder – and might even make other people work harder. Actually, they are probably right about that.

The blender was my choice. It could have been a shop vac or watches or snow shoes or an espresso maker. But the decision for me to get an award lay with my bosses. Smart folks, those bosses. They know that I am now likely going to work my buns off and quit complaining so much...at least for a little while.

I enjoy my current job most of the time, however, like most people, I have had jobs and periods in jobs when I have not been a happy camper. And, I must confess that when I have been particularly unhappy, all the blenders in the world would not have helped. But in general, I find that getting noticed at work does have a positive impact on my job satisfaction.

What makes people happy in their jobs? If you were to judge from what you read in the paper, you’d think it was all about money, benefits and job security. There is no doubt that these things are significant – but only up to a point. Is that all there is, as the old song goes?

I think not. There are people with well paying jobs who hate them, and people who earn peanuts who sit around with big smiles on their faces. I think some of these people are on drugs, personally, but what about the others?

Nurses employed in long term care settings have identified several major areas which account for job dissatisfaction. Most of these are fairly obvious – and many are difficult to address. These include: low pay, less independence in clinical judgments and decision-making, low staffing patterns, high degree of responsibility and accountability for patient care with low recognition for services. Part-time staff are generally more concerned about low pay than their fulltime coworkers.

The good news is that aside from pay, there are a number of other factors which also influence job satisfaction – and that many of these factors are actually things employers can do something about.

Job satisfaction comes in many forms. It means feeling that you are doing something of value. It also helps if not only you feel your job is useful, but also society. For example, it would probably be easier to feel virtuous about your work if you were a teacher or a police officer than if you were a clerk for a telemarketing firm.

Working in long term care presents an interesting dilemma in this regard. On the one hand you are caring for vulnerable people who really need your help – but on the other hand, the eventual outcomes are generally negative, some members of society still maintain negative ideas about the very existence of long term care facilities, and the people you are actually providing services to are not always appreciative.

But even more important than what the society at large thinks is what your immediate supervisor thinks about your work. It helps if your boss feels that your job is important – and that your boss lets you know that you in particular are doing a good job.

Bosses convey this information in a variety of ways. Sometimes – not often – it is by giving you a blender. Sometimes, it is an informal thing – and sometimes, it is based on annual performance reviews. The latter always sounds like a good idea – but it is important that the criteria used to measure performance are actually consistent with what’s important in the job.

It is often difficult to measure the things that really make a difference – particularly for front line staff. We can count the number of days they were absent, and we can measure the amount of time it look to do a certain task. But it can be a bit tricky to quantify a person’s manner with residents, or the extra time they take to listen, or their patience with a difficult family. But however it is done, there is no doubt that support from supervisors is key.

Recently, one Ontario based study indicated that the single most powerful influence on job satisfaction in long term care was supervisory support. In particular, support which focuses on the relational behaviours of the supervisor. Being empathic and dependable and building connections with staff was key to their job satisfaction. Given that staff members’ main job responsibility is to care for residents, anything that supports the relational aspect of the work environment is obviously going to be very important.

In fact, if you look at the research, management support, social cohesion, and job challenges emerged as strong predictors of job satisfaction in almost any line of work.

Feeling that you are an integral part of the business leads to job satisfaction. Having a reasonable amount of autonomy contributes to job satisfaction. Having little control over what you do is not a good thing and leads to feeling a bit useless. Staff who can choose what area they work in are generally more satisfied than people who are randomly assigned to a specific unit.

This may be partly because job satisfaction also comes from a good match between your skills and interests and those that the job requires. Hardly anyone enjoys doing something they are bad at. And if the job doesn’t basically interest you, it’s hard to feel satisfied at the end of a day’s work.

Why do were care about job satisfaction? Well, some folks clearly don’t. I remember some years ago asking the managers of one long term care facility if they would be interested in participating in a study of job stress among their employees. The response? “Our employees are lucky to have a job—they shouldn’t have any stress. And if they do, we don’t want to hear about it. ”

I remember thinking, “Remind me not to ever work there.” This comment was made during a period in which nurses were being laid off hand over fist. But today, we find ourselves short of nurses, and I know that this particular facility is having a worse time than most hiring nurses. Doesn’t surprise me. People talk. They know the places to stay away from!

But the real reason we care about job satisfaction is because happy employees do a better job – pure and simple, and they don’t tend to leave. The cost of job turnover is extremely high, not only in financial terms, but it also makes it very difficult to run an organization that offers some of the other things that contribute to job satisfaction – like giving employees autonomy and letting them have some control over their work.