Home > The Values and workplace relationships > Job satisfaction

JOB SATISFACTION

The employee survey asked respondents to choose the five workplace factors (out of a list of 16) that impacted most on how satisfied they were with their job. Respondents were then asked to indicate their level of satisfaction with their most important factors.

Table 5.5: Job Satisfaction–employees’ most important workplace factors

Note: (a) Of the employees who nominated this factor as one of their most important and rated it, the percentage who were either ‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’ with the factor in their current workplace.

Source: Employee survey

It can be seen from Table 5.5 that while the two most important workplace factors for job satisfaction (‘good working relationships’ and ‘flexible working arrangements’) had high satisfaction ratings (85% and 81% respectively) the next two most important workplace factors (‘regular feedback/recognition for effort’ and ‘salary’) had relatively low satisfaction ratings (52% and 51% respectively). The fifth most important factor impacting on job satisfaction, ‘good manager’, had a satisfaction rating of 64%, which was close to the average satisfaction rating of the 16 workplace factors (63%).

Other notable results from Table 5.5 were that the two workplace factors that had the lowest satisfaction ratings, ‘opportunities for career development’ (32%) and ‘appropriate workload’ (40%) were relatively lowly ranked in terms of their impact on job satisfaction, eleventh and fourteenth respectively.

Chapter 8 on workplace diversity contains some analysis of job satisfaction factors for women, Indigenous employees, employees with a disability, people from a non-English speaking background, and older and younger workers.

There were some interesting changes in the employee survey results for the 15 job satisfaction factors comparable between the 2003 and 2004 surveys. Three of the top five most important workplace factors stayed the same (‘good working relationships’, ‘flexible working arrangements’ and ‘salary’) while ‘opportunities to utilise my skills’ and ‘interesting work provided’ fell out of the top five to be replaced with ‘regular feedback/recognition for effort’ and ‘good manager’ (this latter factor was not offered as an option in 2003). In relation to satisfaction rates, while satisfaction with six workplace factors remained fairly constant between the two surveys, the remaining nine factors recorded falls in satisfaction levels. The largest relative falls occurred in ‘opportunities for career development’ (from 43% to 32%), ‘appropriate workload’ (from 49% to 40%) and ‘salary’ (62% to 51%).

Exploring the relatively low and falling satisfaction rates for these three factors is interesting. For ‘salary’ it is clear that the APS 1—6 classification group had the lowest rate of satisfaction (49%) compared to EL staff (59%) and the SES (53%) in 2004. Rates of satisfaction with ‘salary’ for this group had also fallen the most in the period between the two surveys (falling by around 20% for APS 1—6 employees compared to falls of 13% for the SES and 11% for EL staff). Employees in the ACT were on average more satisfied with ‘salary’ (55%) and less dissatisfied (22%) compared to those outside the ACT (50% satisfied and 31% dissatisfied). The APS 1—6 classification group had the lowest satisfaction rate for ‘opportunities for career development’ but it was the EL classification group that was least satisfied with ‘appropriate workload’.

The following comments made in the employee survey are illustrative of the spectrum of views.

I am the ultimate satisfied employee. My workplace is new, I have great supervisors, my co-workers take my opinions seriously and I enjoy my work.

I like my job but it is very stressful. We are under heaps of pressure to complete our work.

I thoroughly enjoy my work but I find the increasing volume/demand of it is becoming crippling.

There are no opportunities for career advancement and despite being better qualified and more competent than most of my managers I will not be able to advance my position without leaving the State.

Job satisfaction within the organisation is generally low due to the lack of opportunity in career advancement.

I love my job–the autonomy and the capacity to assist my teams to do truly great things with our clients.

I cannot remember the last time the team I work in received any feedback from our team leader (positive or negative).

I believe that there is not enough feedback given to me so I can gauge if I am really going in the right direction with leadership and managing staff.

A good manager is very important to my job satisfaction, which I can be sure of, having experienced both good and bad.

The key factor is about work/family balance, and access to flexible work conditions. This reflects the stage of life I am currently at and will change in the future.

APS work is rewarding, however, I believe that with increased workloads and significance of that work, remuneration should be at an appropriate level. I do not believe that is the current position.

For the responsibility and knowledge I have, for the highly complex decisions and the extra time we put in over normal working hours–we get paid poorly.

My employment provides job satisfaction. There has been no recognition from managers, however, with the philosophy of ‘no news is good news’, I cope extremely well.

A summary index was created from the results of the job satisfaction question in the employee survey. The index ranges from zero (respondent was very dissatisfied with all of the factors nominated) to 10 (respondent was very satisfied with all factors). An index of five translates to a respondent being, on average, neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with his/her nominated factors.

For all respondents the proportion with a job satisfaction index over five was 74%. This was not much different from the 76% result of the previous year. Like last year, the job satisfaction index varied considerably among the 22 large agencies, from over 80% to just under 55%. Three agencies (BOM, ATO and DVA) received a job satisfaction index of over five for more than 80% of their employees. BOM has now received this two years in a row. Four agencies received an increase of over five index points over the year (DVA, ATO, DAFF and DEWR) while five agencies experienced a fall of over five index points.

Women had slightly higher levels of job satisfaction than men (75% with a job satisfaction index of over five compared to 72% of men) as did part-time employees (77%) compared to full-time employees (73%). Job satisfaction was generally unrelated to age, except employees over 55 years who had higher levels of job satisfaction (81%). Job satisfaction was higher for APS employees in the ACT (78% compared to 72% for employees outside the ACT), and varied strongly by classification levels with the SES (88%) having higher levels of job satisfaction than EL staff (79%) who, in turn, have higher job satisfaction levels than APS 1—6 employees (72%). These results were broadly similar to those from last year’s survey, though this year some differences emerged between those inside and outside the ACT and differences by age narrowed.