JOB SATISFACTION AND EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT TO WORK: COMPARATIVE STUDY OF EDUCATION AND BANKING INSTITUTIONS

ABSTRACT

Organizations effectiveness is enhanced due to their willingness to promote a sense of commitment and satisfaction among its employees. Employees commitment leads to desirable outcomes for organization in terms of increased productivity, reduction in absenteeism and turnover. Committed employees will work harder and be more likely to go the extra mile to achieve organizational objectives. Motivated employees are more productive. The motivational factors include: job security, regular promotion and opportunities for development, interesting work, environment and satisfaction towards salary. The population of this study was drawn from members of staff of educational and banking institutions within Akoka, Yaba, and Surulere Local Government Areas of Lagos State. The population  consist of 95 employees who are under the employment of the mentioned institutions. The Questionnaire form contained questions in three sections that displayed the biographic data, socio-economic data and research questions relating to the respondents. Four points like scale as, (1) very much satisfied (2) much satisfied (3) somehow satisfied (4) not at all satisfied was utilized to evaluate job satisfaction and employees commitment to work. The presentation of findings commences with description statistics. The presentation of demographic findings followed the descriptive statistics. Presentation and discussion of data analysis then follows. The Pearson’s coefficient of correlation method was used to show the relationship between job satisfaction  and employee’s commitment to work. The reliability of the instrument was determined by the use of test-retest method and correlation test was used to test for significance of differences between the first round and second round when it was administered. A calculated value of 0.80 shows that the questionnaire was reliable. The hypotheses of this study were tested at alpha 0.05 level of significance.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

 Background of Study

Employee commitment to work and job satisfaction are of major interest in the field of organizational behaviour and the practice of human resource management. Organizations usually see the average worker as the root source of quality and productivity gains. Such organizations do not look to capital investment, but to employees as the fundamental source of improvement. An organization is effective to the degree to which it achieves its goals.

An effective organization will make sure that there is a spirit of cooperation and sense of commitment and satisfaction within its sphere of influence. In order to make employees satisfied and committed to their jobs there is the need for strong and effective motivation at the various levels, departments and sections of these organizations.

Luthans (1998) asserts that motivation is the process that arouses, energises, directs and sustains behaviour and performance. That is, it is the process of stimulating people to achieve a desired task. The concept of job satisfaction has been vital for organizations which aim to achieve organizational excellence.

As Amstrong (1999) says, job satisfaction refers to the attitudes and feelings people have about their work.  Positive and favourable attitudes towards the job indicate job satisfaction while negative and unfavourable attitudes indicate job dissatisfaction. Amstrong argues that commitment to work that helps organizations to be more successful, is most likely to happen         when employees are motivated, feel committed to the organization and when their jobs give them high level of satisfaction. It involves employees going an extra mile in the conduct of their duties which is imperative to the achievement of organizational goals.

Management must understand that people work for reward of some sort, that the organization has a common duty to pay wages and that there exists a wage/effort bargain (employees work for certain standards in return for certain rewards). They need to balance the fixed and variable movement through the salary structure to provide incentives and reward performance.