JOB SATISFACTION vs. EMPOWERMENT

Catherine H. Ablaza

Job satisfaction or employee’s satisfaction has been defined in many different ways. Some believe it is simply how content an individual is with his or her job, in other words, whether or not they like the job or individual aspects or facets of jobs, such as nature of work or supervision. Others believe it is not so simplistic as this definition suggests and instead that multidimensional psychological responses to one's job are involved.

A more recent definition of the concept of job satisfaction is from Hulin and Judge (2003), who have noted that job satisfaction includes multidimensional psychological responses to an individual's job, and that these personal responses have cognitive (evaluative), affective (or emotional), and behavioral components. Job satisfaction scales vary in the extent to which they assess the affective feelings about the job or the cognitive assessment of the job. Affective job satisfaction is a subjective construct representing an emotional feeling individuals have about their job. Hence, affective job satisfaction for individuals reflects the degree of pleasure or happiness their job in general induces. Cognitive job satisfaction is a more objective and logical evaluation of various facets of a job. Cognitive job satisfaction can be unidimensional if it comprises evaluation of just one facet of a job, such as pay or maternity leave, or multidimensional if two or more facets of a job are simultaneously evaluated. Cognitive job satisfaction does not assess the degree of pleasure or happiness that arises from specific job facets, but rather gauges the extent to which those job facets are judged by the job holder to be satisfactory in comparison with objectives they themselves set or with other jobs. While cognitive job satisfaction might help to bring about affective job satisfaction, the two constructs are distinct, not necessarily directly related, and have different antecedents and consequences.

Empowerment is a dominant theme in all types of organizations including businesses, industries, and service institutions. Consequently, this strategy has received the attention of educational policy makers who sought to restructure public education.

Empowerment plays an important role in job satisfaction. Employees’ decision making power, one of the variables of empowerment, was shown to be one source of job dissatisfaction (Owens, Mundy, & Harrison, 1981). Rinehart and Short (1994) believed that employees may have greater job satisfaction when their superior involve them in decision making and provide opportunities for them to grow professionally.

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The author is Administrative Assistant II at SDO- Malolos City