Job satisfaction of operation management department at industrial equipment trade joint stock company

875 JOB SATISFACTION OF OPERATION MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT AT INDUSTRIAL EQUIPMENT TRADE JOINT STOCK COMPANY MBA Vu Tri Tuan tuanvu2512@gmail.com EMBA, National Economics University, Hanoi, Vietnam Abstract The paper analyzes the job satisfaction of employees at the Operation Management Department of Industrial Equipment Trade Joint Stock Company (IETC) based on Job Description Index model, as well as proposes solutions to improve job satisfaction. Responses for surveys and questionnaires were collected from all 84 members of the department. Results show that satisfaction levels of factor “Pay”, “The work itself”, and “Promotions and promotion opportunities” are neutral; meanwhile “Coworker” and “Supervision” have satisfied level. This leads to overall job satisfaction at the level of neutral. Therefore, improving policies on Pay, supervisors‟ capabilities, and activities to connect “Coworkers” is recommended to increase job satisfaction. Keywords: Job satisfaction, Operation Management Department, satisfaction levels of factor, solution. 1. Introduction Job satisfaction has been a hot topic recently. Managers and specially HR managers have paid a close attention. In Vietnam, after joining different local and international organizations such as ASEAN, WTO, or WB, the HR market becomes more competitive for companies. Supply for jobs is higher than demand. Quality employees place high requirements for companies to work for. Some workers rank criteria for an organization: Wage - Opportunity to promoted - Welfare. Some others list out: Working environment – Welfare - Colleagues. The job of managers is to find out talented employees and make them satisfy with the job. However, with the Vietnamese working culture, job satisfaction just has been focused and analyzed for not so long. And most of solutions are not applied professionally. Besides, in industrial equipment, there have been few researches of job satisfaction because changing jobs among industrial equipment companies is so common because this field is not popular anymore. The author believes that the research would be the first on dig to a specific level of studying the employees‘ job satisfaction in industrial equipment field than any researches before. Most of managers admit that it is a big lost when a staff leaves. The lost is combination of cost, knowledge, and time. The head of Operation Management 876 Department (OMD) of Industrial Equipment Trade Joint Stock Company (IETC) once said that he would never hired people from Foreign Trade University again, because they do not stay for a long time. According to his experience, he had had 5 talented employees from Foreign Trade University. They had all changed to different departments or different companies after at most two years. It takes time for the manager to find other good people, and to train them. It puts pressure on other team members. All makes up to a huge cost. Thus, evaluating factors that affect employees‘ job satisfaction is a smart move. Managers will know what to change to keep important staffs, and avoid the brain drain. Within many Departments of IETC, Operation Management is the core Department. Since 2014, there have been 15 members moved out of the Department. And the number tends to rise. In order to get dig deeper to see if employees are actually satisfied with the work they do, it is necessary to do the study of Operation Management Department employee‘s job satisfaction at IETC. The job satisfaction of employees will give employees all reasons to stay with OMD happily. It also helps the manager to have a stable team for a better outcome. The Job Descriptive Index model (JDI) is the model the author used. It developed by Smith et al. (1969) at Cornell University in the United States. It has 72 questions to measure 5 factors: supervision, coworkers, pay, promotional opportunities, and the work itself. It has been valued in both research and practice. Participants were asked to think about specific aspects of the job and to evaluate their satisfaction with specific aspects. It's included with Spector's (1997) Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) and Weiss et al.'s Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ). (1967) are the three tools in job satisfaction measurement, in which JDI and MSQ are two tools widely used in practice and theory (Green, 2000). According to Worrell (2004), in about 30 years since its inception, 1200 different studies have used JDI to measure job satisfaction. The JDI model was originally designed with 72 different questions about the five elements of work: (1) the work itself, (2) promotions and promotion opportunities, (3) supervision, (4) coworker and (5) pay. - Pay: refers to the employee's perceptions of fairness (internal and external) in payment. Obviously, the higher payment a worker gets, the higher satisfaction level the worker has. Pay can be seen as one of the first factor when a person is looking for a job. And it is also one of the first and most important factor that a person thinks of to evaluate job satisfaction. Pay is not the most important reason an employee work for a company, and it should not. But pay provides what employees need. - Promotions and promotion opportunities: involves employee perceptions of opportunities for training, personal development, and opportunities for promotion within the organization. According to Kreitner and Kinicki (2001), development chances is proportional to job satisfaction only if perceptions of employees are fair. Promotion opportunities have shown in many Vietnamese studies having positive impact on job satisfaction: Tran Kim Dung, (2005); or Ha Nam Khanh Giao (2011). - Coworkers: Coworker relationship in the workplace. Friendly and helpful coworkers are tremendous important factor that whether the job satisfaction is negative or 877 positive, according to Kreitner & Kinicki (2001). A place with full of nice and open- minded colleagues would never be a dissatisfied place. - The work itself: involves the challenges of the job, the opportunity to use personal abilities, and the joy of doing the job. According to Loke (1995) and Luddy (2005), job satisfaction depends on the nature of the job. The link of work to the worker is shown in many angles of the nature of the job. What is the usage of skills? How the work flow is understood? How important a certain job is? More essentially, the work itself has to fit with employees‘ capacity. - Supervision involves the relationship between the employee and the immediate supervisor, the supervisor's support, the leadership style and the leadership's ability to perform organizational functions in the organization. Job satisfaction can be affected by the relationship with supervisor positively or negatively. The feeling when talking, eye contacting, smiling can imply many things. Employees can see the respect from supervisors through the mean of communication. A manager who comes to a staff‘s table to assign tasks carefully and friendly is different than a boss who calls out loud a staff to come and assign the job without any details. The impacts to JS are opposite. (Robins, 2002). According to Ramsey (1997) morale connects significantly with leadership. Mean bosses would never stay long with employees. People need to be on the same side in order to empathize to each other. By that, stress would be reduced and JS would be increased. 2. Method The Research process is followed: 1. Determining Research Objectives 2. Classifying dimensions to measure job satisfaction 3. Data collection: - Primary data: In – depth Interviews and questionnaire surveys - Secondary data: OMD reports, and other relevant reports 4. Analyzing current employee job satisfaction 5. Proposing Solutions For data collection, both primary and secondary data were used in conducting the research. Secondary data were collected through the IETC‘s labor agreements, IETC‘s structure, HR management policies, HR management rate, and other relevant reports. Besides that, secondary data were also collected from books, articles, journals, handouts in human resources development and the internet. To collect primary data, questionnaires were given out through emails to 84 members of OMD, not including head of departments and head of divisions. Responses were collected via emails. The questionnaires are designed based on the measuring employee job satisfaction with questions of multiple choices, using 5 point likert scaling system. 1 to 5 represents from totally dissatisfied to totally satisfied. The author constructed a questionnaire on the Likert scale of 5 in the questionnaire. The significance of each mean value to the Interval Scale was determined as follows: 878 Distance value = (Maximum - Minimum) / n = (5 - 1) / 5 = 0.8 Thus, range of mean for totally dissatisfied is 1.00 – 1.8; 1.81 – 2.60 is Dissatisfied‘s range of mean; 2.61 – 3.40 is Neutral‘s; 3.41 – 4.20 is Satisfied‘s; and 4.21 – 5.00 is Totally satisfied‘s. (Source: Statistical book of socio-economic application - Chu Nguyen Mong Ngoc and Hoang Trong, 2008) In the questionnaire, 23 variables are observed to measure 5 dimensions of job satisfaction as follows: - The work itself (4 variables): + The work is suitable for staffs‘ professional knowledge and skills; + The work is as expected; + The amount of work is suitable; + Work is motivated. - Promotions and promotion opportunities (5 variables): + Training programs for new employees are available; + Training programs for senior employees are available; + Opportunities to be promoted are various; + Promotion program is fair; + Programs to develop employees‘ personal capacity are available. - Supervision (6 variables): + Supervisor treats employees fairly; + Supervisor listens and respects employees‘ opinions; + Supervisor is professional at work; + Supervisor motivates employees; + Relationship between supervisors and employees is good; + Supervisors assign works based on employees‘ skills and knowledge. - Coworkers (4 variables): + Good relationship with coworkers; + Good cooperation with coworkers; + Coworkers are friendly and caring; + Coworkers are willing to share knowledge and experience. - Pay (4 variables): + The pay can cover monthly expenses; + The pay is paid fully and timely; + The pay is commensurate with the volume and complexity of my work; + The pay is commensurate with the outcome. (Source: Smith, Kendall, and Hulin (1969)) 879 The author also had in – depth interviews with the Head of Department, 2 Heads of Divisions and 3 employees. These interviews are to deeply understand on current job satisfaction situation at OMD. It involves opening questions and direct questions to factors affecting job satisfaction. The data collected from the questionnaire were analyzed and categorized according to the factors: gender, age, academic qualifications, and seniority. Mean, frequency, maximum value, and minimum value are calculated and represented at tables and figures. The items were grouped based on the responses given by the respondents. This method is suitable to identify, compare, describe and reach a conclusion. 3. Results ―The work itself‖ is one of the most important aspects to attract human resources. It is the first consideration when a person decides whether to choose the job. The work itself is influenced by 4 observational variables, including: The work is suitable for staffs‘ professional knowledge and skills; The work is as expected; The amount of work is suitable; Work is motivated. The mean value of the variable ―The work is suitable for staffs‘ professional knowledge and skills "has the highest mean value of 3.33, followed by the variable " The work is motivated ". Its mean is 3.32 which is in the 2.61-3.40 group. It indicates that the current job may be motivated, maybe not. It might depend on the actual job that people are doing; It also depends on employee‘s expectation as well as understanding of the job. ―The work is as expected‖ has the mean of 3.19. It is not a high value. Similar to the above questions, some employees of Operation Management Department are not so happy with the job when their expectations did not meet the reality. According to a Head of the Division, employees can be assigned to different jobs, in different location based on the requirements. Thus, people can have work they did not want to at the beginning. ―The amount of work is suitable‖ has the lowest mean among 4 questions. It is in the range of dissatisfied. 36 and 37 people had the answer of either dissatisfied or neutral. 7 people were totally dissatisfied. Only 4 people were satisfied. It indicates that the work in OMD is not well-distributed. In reality, some employees have to have do OT 5 days/ week without bonus. They simply have too much work that they cannot do within business hours. Some divisions have to work on every Saturday. Oppositely, some people never come home late. The second dimension is "pay". We are looking at 4 important questions: Whether payment is timely and fully? Whether payment is commensurate with volume and complexity? Whether outcome and payment is commensurate? Whether payment is enough? As condition in labor contract, and the culture in IETC as well as the Operation Management Department, people would neither share their salaries nor ask other‘s pays. Thus, pay is a sensitive issue. The variable "Pay is paid fully and timely" with a mean of 3.6> 3.41. It shows that all staffs of the OMD are satisfied with the payment of wages. Staffs get paid in full on 880 10th of each month. Pay is never late with detailed description. More than half of OMD employees feel satisfied with this factor. It accounts for 60.71%. The rest stays neutral which is 39.29%. Because the OMD belongs to IETC which is a government enterprise, the pay is never late or not full. This is an advantage. However, for the remaining variables, the results are completely contradictory. With two variables, "The pay is commensurate with the volume and complexity of my work," and " The pay is commensurate with the outcome," the results were not high, averaging 2.76 and 2.9, respectively. It shows that the regimes and policies on remuneration and evaluating the performance of the companies applying are not very effective. It leads to the dissatisfaction of the employees. Particularly with the variable " The pay is commensurate with the volume and complexity of my work," ", the mean was 2.76 <3.41. Overall, the overall mean value of the "Pay" aspect was 3.04 < 3.41. It shows that employees are not really satisfied with the current pay. Many employees argue that wages do not really match the results. At the OMD, the difference between managers‘ and staffs‘ salaries is huge. While the number of employees accounts for a large proportion of the OMD, the annual increase in staff salaries is negligible. In this study, the "Co-worker" aspect was established from 4 observable variables. In the relationship with colleagues, the author mentions the following variables: relationships between co-workers, cooperation between co-workers, sharing between co- workers, and feeling toward each others. The mean of the term ―Coworker‖ is 3.5. The mean is in the range of satisfied. It indicates that people in OMD have a strong and tie connection with each other. The variable "Coworkers are willing to share knowledge and experience" reached a relatively high mean of 3.47. In general, the relationship between peers is very good, with the highest mean of 3.6. The complexity of the work requires the coordination of staff between departments. Thus, it is necessary to share experience and information that create a relative harmony in the work environment at work. With 50 employees which is 60% of respondents choose to say satisfied and more than satisfied, we can conclude that general working environment at OMD is ideal The remaining " Coworkers are friendly and caring‖ has a mean of 3.44. It indicates that the staffs are quite satisfied when working in the corporate team. This is a relatively positive result compared with other factors. With the characteristics of office works and the culture of IETC, people in the OMD see each other as family members. Thus, new staffs can immediately feel the warm welcome from old staffs. There are no distances between coworkers. Variables with a mean value greater than 3.5 indicate that employees are satisfied with the attitudes of colleagues, as well as the coordination and support at work. In this study, the author examines 6 variables of the "Supervision" aspect: fair treatment, listening and respecting opinions, competence, motivation, relationships with 881 employees, and assigning for right people. All 6 variables have means in the satisfied range - 3.41 to 4.20. Much better than the factor ―Coworker‖, ―Supervision‖ factor determine that supervisors of the department of the OMD is qualified. In fact, all questions asked about bosses at work all have means in the satisfied range. This never happens with others factors: The work itself, Pay, and Coworker. Even though the mean of ―Supervision‖ is lightly lower than the mean of ―Coworker‖, in my opinion, ―Supervision‖ is the one which has the highest score. "Supervision" is one of the aspects that greatly influence job satisfaction in the workplace. When the work itself does not change, good leaders will know how to increase job satisfaction. They will know how to allocate the right job to the right people, to treat them fairly, and to create interpersonal relationships. The staff will feel more interesting about their current job. More importantly, employees will feel motivated to accomplish the assigned work. This also creates momentum for them to try harder for higher position. The relationship between employers and employees is a two-way relationship. Managers have the right to exchange, transfer, remit and evaluate employees. Employees have the right to display their status, thoughts and behaviors. Employees also have the right to show their opinions through the way supervisors manage works. From there, staffs can show respect or concern about managers. Supervisors need to have a team of qualified staffs who know what to do in specific jobs. On the other hand, employees need leaders who can have visions in every step. They have to feel protected. This could be a win-win or lose-lose relationship. Most of employees at the Operation Management Department in particular or IETC in general have strong connections with many people. Many of them get the job through connections. However, it does not mean that the OMD‘s supervisors treat people based on their connections. People are treated based on commitments, results of work, attitudes, and characteristics. The fairness in treatment can be seen through statistics. Only one person (1.19%) felt completely not dissatisfied. Number of people satisfied is 29. And 8 people are very satisfied. The total of 37 people accounted for about 35% The variable "Supervisor motivates employees" has 3.41 as the mean. Even though, this number is at the satisfied range, this equals to the minimum of the range. This is the sign showing that supervisors need to do more on supporting employees. With this fragile statistic, it is extreme easy for staffs to feel that their bosses do not encourage them at work. From there, they would not feel the joy while working.