CUHK Business School research reveals

experience negative motions, and may foster negative circumstances at work, which in turn decrease their job satisfaction.

“People with high positive affectivity are sensitive to positive environmental cues and thus likely to perceive themselves and the world in a positive light, whereas those with high negative affectivity tend to view themselves and their environment through a negative lens,” says Prof. Li.

Genetic influences wane

The study results show that as people accumulate more experiences when they develop into adulthood, genetic influences on individual characteristics become less important - but still significant - throughout early adulthood.

“We found that when participants were around 21 years old, percent of the variance in job satisfaction. However, genetic age 25 and age 30 dropped sig 19.8 percent,” he adds.

- ences are likely to be diluted by work situations over time.

“During early adulthood, employees’ job satisfaction levels may be more shaped by environmental factors such as organizational practices (e.g., leadership, performance management, and reward systems) and economic situations, and these external factors may become increasingly important over time,” says Prof. Li.

“The results also show that after partialling out genetic - ences on job satisfaction were at work and occupational status, - tively stable across the three time points,” he adds.

Enhancing employees’ job satisfaction

Since during early adulthood, employees’ job satisfaction levels may be shaped by environmental factors more, organizations could have more room to influence employees’ job satisfaction by in- troducing appropriate measures. try to tailor their practices according to individual differences.

“Organizations should pay more attention to the importance of employees’ personality traits in customizing their practices, as it shows in our study that positive affectivity is important in boosting job satisfaction. This is similar to personalized medicine,” Prof. Li says.

In enhancing job satisfaction among employees, other environmental factors should also be considered.

“As our study shows that interpersonal conflicts significantly affected job satisfaction, maintaining harmonized interpersonal relationships at work will be a useful approach to keep your employees,” he says.