Determinants of Job Satisfaction – Empirical Study

Job satisfaction is becoming a subject of growing interest in organizations. It is justi-fied that job satisfaction has an impact on business performance. Committed staff can be a determining factor in the success of an organization. It is very important to recognize the determinants of job satisfaction. The purpose of the paper is to review the literature concerning about the determinants of job satisfaction. Based on the study of the literature, the author made her own model of determinants of job satisfaction. The final conclusions are related to the empirical study based on job satisfaction survey conducted in the X firm. There is detailed information and analysis on the structure of the factors affecting job satisfaction in this company. The findings obtained from the survey could support theoretical views described in the paper: the determinants which are in the presented model are also present in tested organizations.

One of the main activities of each adult is their job. It can be concluded that the average worker spends almost half of the active time performing professional activities. The work is part of our lives and at the same time it decides about our quality of life. Absolutely it can be said that the work affects the personal life of each employee. Aside from the obvious value of the material motivators, intangible assets such as social ties can be identified. Job satisfaction is a very important topic, both for employees and for employers, that is why job satisfaction is a deeply researched area. Job satisfaction is a very important attribute which organisations desire from their employees: • Because of its relevance to the physical and mental well being of employees, i.e. job satisfaction has relevance for human health.
• Because work is an important aspect of people's lives and most people spend a large part of their lives at work. In addition to its humanitarian value, job satisfaction appears to be extensively researched in a variety of organisations for work-related objectives. This is because of the implicit assumptions that job satisfaction is a potential determinant of productivity, absenteeism, turnover, in-role job performance and extra-role behavior 1 .
One of the better-known job satisfaction theories was developed by F. Herzberg 2 . Herzberg's two-factor theory supposed that the phenomenon of job satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction is a function of two classes of variables named motivators and hygiene factors. The satisfaction, growth or motivational factors that are intrinsic to the job are: achievement, recognition for achievement, responsibility, the work itself, and growth or advancement. The dissatisfaction, avoidance or hygiene factors that are extrinsic to the job are: salary, status, security, company policy and administration, working conditions, supervision, and interpersonal relationships) 3 . Herzberg claimed that hygiene factors are not directly related to job satisfaction, therefore, these factors will not distinctly improve performance 4 . The motivators and hygiene factors 5 are similar to the intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction factors of other scholars. Intrinsic job satisfaction has been defined as a person's value in terms of their creativity, opportunities for resource mobilization, future development and stability derived from the job; overall, it includes items related to job content 6 .
Numerous attempts have been made by researchers to define the concept of satisfaction, and they all acknowledge that satisfaction is the final state of a psychological process. Most of the existing definitions have been reviewed and compared in the presented table. 1 T. Oshagbemi, Academics and their managers: a comparative study in job satisfaction, "Personnel Review" 1999, Vol. 28, No.   In accordance with this review, satisfaction could be defined as "a summary and affective response of variable intensity that is centred on the specific aspects of the acquisition and/or the consumption and that takes place at the exact moment when an individual evaluates the object" 7 . There are many concepts distingnishing the factors causing and influencing job satisfaction. In this paper, we understand the determinant of any stimulus that affects the desired feelings or bringing a feeling of pleasure. The following highlights the determinants of the most frequently mentioned in the literature. However, one of the most clear and complete concepts and ideas, organizing the above mentioned determinants is the division proposed by V.K. Borooah 8 . The Author classified the determinants into four main groups: The first category referred to items which might be regarded by workers as important attributes of a job: good pay; not too much pressure; security; respected job; good hours; opportunity to use initiative; generous holidays; opportunity to achieve; a responsible job; an interesting job; meets one's abilities; pleasant people to work with; good chances of promotion; useful for society; and opportunity for meeting people. The variables in the second group are related to the respondents' social life and feelings: whether they spend time socially with work colleagues at least once a month; and if they were "unhappy". The third group comprised the socio-demographic variables: sex, age, marital status and education. The fourth group related to the characteristics of the respondents' jobs: the perceived degree of job security, the respondents' perception of their household income (both classified as low, medium, high) and the respondents' perception of the type of job which they performed.
Despite objections to the diversification of sources of perception and feeling of professional satisfaction, it seems that the types of two classes that respond similarly to stimuli that generate a sense of job satisfaction can be determined. These are called differentiating criteria: age, length of service, job position. Division into two separated groups of determinants that influence the final evaluation and sense of job satisfaction is shown in the presented figure. The constitutive variables are the main mechanism building perception of professional satisfaction. They have a status of attributes related to the employer and its organizational and motivating system, i.e.: pay, formal relations, organizational culture and others. The overall individual sense of job satisfaction, the specific final feeling for each person is then varied by their socio-demographic factors, related to personal and professional life of each employee. To clarity the presented model, there is a need to briefly describe an area of differential variables which have been used in a practical study in X firm.
The first differentiating variable is the age. In the literature there are views that job satisfaction increases with age. The least satisfied with the work are young workers. This relationship is confirmed blue-collar and white-collar workers, in men and women. Many young people are dissatisfied with their first job because they do not find in it appropriate, difficult and responsible tasks. If our response to the first job is often a disappointment, so why does job satisfaction generally increase with age? There are three possible explanations.
Firstly, the most job dissatisfied young people either permanently give up work, or they change it so frequently, as a result they are not involved in the search of satisfaction. According to this way of thinking, the older workers are tested, the more satisfied they are. Secondly, with the aging of workers, their disappointment may grow. They can abandon their job dedication and challenges at work and look for satisfaction elsewhere. Therefore, the study may show slight dissatisfaction. Thirdly, older workers may feel more and self-fulfilled at work than young people. Age and experience is usually combined with greater confidence, competence, high self-esteem and responsibility, which in turn promotes greater achievements. In other words, older workers may have a better job than young workers 9 .
Another differentiating variable is the length of service. In general, of the staff have just taken up a new job, they are satisfied with it. The work is interesting for them because it is something new. A new place, the content of work, working conditions and the environment and learning new skills and competencesthat all will impact early satisfaction in the initial period. However, we must remember that the level of satisfaction after a certain period may start to fall if the worker is accustomed to the new circumstances. Especially if the employee does not develop. Thus, after a few years the level of satisfaction declines. Changing jobs gives feedback to their self-development and progress, and increased opportunities for advancement 10 . After examining 124 sales representatives of 7 companies, it was found that their satisfaction declined over time. More experienced workers do not believe that good performance at work leads to rewards. Their aspirations and commitment to work decreased, their organizational commitment 11 was also smaller. On the basis of those results it can be concluded that job satisfaction seems to be significantly increased in the first years of occupation. However, after a certain period of time, this increase is much smaller. Here an analogy with the case depending on the age and satisfaction can be observed.
The last variable in the model presented is a job position. The relationship between the position and the satisfaction is simple. The higher the job position, the higher the perceived satisfaction. For example, the attitude of managers towards work is more positive than the attitudes of grassroots leaders who -in turn -are more satisfied with their jobs than their subordinates 12 .

Employee satisfaction survey in the X Company
The X Company is a French company in a construction and interior decoration sector. It has been operating in Poland since 1994 and today it has 43 stores in large and medium-sized citiesin six regions. There is clear, the same organizational structure in all stores. Each employee reports to the head of the unit to which he or she is assigned. The most important function is performed by Store Manager who is responsible for managing the store in terms of sales and administration. The Store Manager also creates an image of the store and the company outside. According to the corporate strategy the Store Manager determines trading, administrative and personnel policy in the store. The X Company is an organization that gives priority to satisfaction and confidence (trust) of the staff. Employee involvement is an element, without which it is difficult to imagine the functioning of the company. That is why the X Company pursues a philosophy of division, the true foundation of the company: • sharing knowledge (exchange of information and training to enable employees to develop personally and professionally), • separation of power (based on the awareness of responsibility, self-reliance and encouragement to express employees' ideas about the future of the company), • breakdown of the results (the company believes in teamwork and rewards shared success ). Given the assumptions, which have been described in above personnel strategy, the company conducted a professional study on job satisfaction. All detailed survey areas are presented below. The results were gained from among numerical answers: 1 -very low level of evaluation in this area, 5 -very high level of evaluation in this area.
Research fields -the determinants of job satisfaction in the X firm: • my work -within the factor there have been diagnosed the following problems: having friends among the employees of the company, staff ideas appreciation ideas, degree of satisfaction with job content, clarity of procedures in a firm, further career plans with the company, taking into account by management staff ideas of workers, the level of employee contribution to the success of the company, assessment of the degree of employee identification with the company, • atmosphere and cooperation -concerns the problem of assessing the level of the atmosphere at work, sense of help and support from colleagues if there was a need, help and support from the headquarters staff if there was a need, the impact of job rotation, evaluation of cooperation in the implementation of a common goal by employees, • working conditions -it diagnoses the support of the organization in providing adequate working tools, evaluation of stability and a sense of job security, the adequacy of the scope and time in relation to the possibility of an employee, feeling of comfort by wearing official dress, • internal communication -involves: the frequency of meetings with the team manager, the frequency of individual meetings with the supervisor, the duration of meetings with the supervisor to clarify the concerns of the employees, the assessment of communication about events in the company, review of meetings with the supervisor, assessing the role of communication tools (sources of information), • opportunities for development and training -within this factor there are identified the following areas: a sense of employee development opportunities, knowledge of the criteria for joining the development program, the quality and quantity of training in relation to the expectations of the employee, the variety of forms of training, the role of the supervisor in promoting training, • immediate superior -is the area in which there is evaluation of workers' opinion: superior's competence, level of communication with superiors, respect for time supervisor, motivating subordinates, supervisor's support for their employees in carrying out tasks, • wages and social benefits -as part of this factor are diagnosed following problems: knowledge of the criteria for promotion and bonuses, salaries compared to salaries in the company competitors, timely payment of wages, salary satisfaction, the degree of impact of variable remuneration and social benefits, • evaluation interview about the annual assessment and the development of an individual -includes questions about: communication of the necessary information to employees so they can make self-assessment of their tasks and strengths, the annual appraisal meeting, taking into account the feedback, the impact of the objectives and tasks of the sense of employee development, employee development plan, the adequacy of its ambitions, compliance with the findings of the annual talks, the degree of self motivation after speaking assessment, • azimuth / a business project 13 -identifies the knowledge and understanding of the project, the value of individual components of the azimuth, compliance with the company rules azimuth, such as cooperation, respect, good atmosphere, acquisition, use, and development of knowledge, responsibility, competence of employees and managers, challenges and motivation with 13 Azimuth is a project involving some values of the company that are expressed in the form of competence. These competencies are evaluated. For all positions there are: focus on the results and the customer, collaboration and communication, extension and application of knowledge. Managerial standpoints are dedicated to leadership, talent development, confidence building, persuasion and influence, innovation. a particular focus on giving challenges and appreciating the results, customer satisfaction, good governance/management and development of the company 14 . It is clear that the above areas overlap with the determinants that are most common in the literature. It is possible to the factors related to material motivating such as: pay, pension accruals, fringe benefits and the factors of non-material motivation, both work-oriented like: working condition, interesting job content, knowledge and influence on how to work on ways of achieving it, the content of work, respected job, good hours and employee-oriented such as support of teaching, high self-esteem on the part of the employee, the possibility of development, relationships, institutional support, opportunity for advancement, leadership styles, climate, managing and employee motivating, opportunity to use initiative, opportunity of achievements pleasant people to work with, good chances of promotion, interpersonal relationships e.g., relationships with superiors and relationships with co-workers, advancement opportunities.
On the basis of the source data, below is presented a synthetic study of employee satisfaction. The study was conducted in three editions in the years 2007-2011. In 2007, the study included 48% of the workforce. In 2009, the number of respondents increased to 69%. However, in 2011 the study involved 5,236 workers, 79% of the workforce. Thus in 2011 the increase in participation compared to 2009 and 2007 can be seen. Source: own study based on internal documents of the X organization.
14 Source: own study based on interior documents of X organization.
Based on these data, we can see that over the last four years, the level of employee satisfaction is at a similar level and it fluctuates around the average level. But there can be seen a slight downward trend in the level of satisfaction: working conditions, communication and immediate supervisor. The upward trend is visible only in the area of: my job and azimuth / design company. Atmosphere and cooperation and the annual discussion of the assessment and development are formed in each edition of the survey at the same level. However, in the case of training and development opportunities, wages, and the overall level of satisfaction in 2009 an increase was recorded (compared to 2007) and then a decrease in 2011 compared to the previous edition of the study. It should also be noted that the lowest value was recorded in the satisfaction level of the salaries and social packages. Therefore consideration should be given to the improvement of this factor.
In the following tables a detailed schedule of tests carried out in 2011 is presented. Results are ordered by ordering the variables proposed by the company. Age: up to 25 years, 25-35 years, above 35 years, work experience of six months, from six months to two years, over 2 years, the position of: managerial and no-managerial. It is worth noting that the variables proposed by the company are in line with the variables proposed in the model. Source: own study based on internal documents of the X organization.
Based on these data it can be seen that the level of satisfaction in each age group is at a similar level in the area of average. The replies are formed in the range of 2.8-3.9. A slight trend indicating that job satisfaction increases with the age of the employee is observed. However, this is a very poor correlation. Therefore, it can be concluded that age is not clearly differentiating variable sense of satisfaction in the company. Similar results have been identified in case of seniority and age. The replies are positioned in the range of 2.8-3.9. It was also noted that the level of satisfaction decreases with increasing seniority. This trend applies to all components, except of four areas: my job, the atmosphere and cooperation, working conditions and general questions -the level of satisfaction decreases with increasing seniority in the range of 6 months -2 years relative to the preceding interval and the interval length of service of more than 2 years is already stable. The only component that does not show this trend downward is the area of remuneration and social package. In this area a decrease in the level of satisfaction between 6 months -2 years compared to the previous range is showed and level of satisfaction increased slightly in the range of another. The practical implications of research in this area is to pay special attention to the possible problem with the experienced staff turnover. Less and less sense of satisfaction with another year of employment in the tested company may result in the departure of the employee or decrease in the effectiveness of their work. In addition, a problem is compounded by the lack of ability to address the described risk due to structural constraints. Among the fundamental factors there are a flat organizational structure limiting promotions, simple and monotonous work content for most positions (customer service) or unsatisfactory remuneration. Source: own study based on internal documents of the X organization.
As can be seen the level of satisfaction of employees in managerial positions is higher than that of employees in non-managerial positions. This applies to all areas except for the component of the atmosphere where cooperation and satisfaction is at the same level in both managerial and non-managerial posts. The presented results are a confirmation of the theoretical assumptions that employees occupying managerial positions (higher salary, interesting work content, prestige) are more satisfied with their work.
A key finding of the study is that the variables influencing the sense of satisfaction fluctuate at a similar level between 2.8 and 3.6. in the area of: "my work" and "the immediate supervisor". It can be concluded therefore that extreme areas have been identified that do not represent a strong threat. Also, the research have shown variables, which definitely have a positive impact on the sense of satisfaction. It should also be noted that the X Company proposed by differentiating variables (age, length of service, position) did not differentiate significantly a feeling of satisfaction. This level is adopted in each of the dimensions at a comparable level. On this basis, it should be noted that the overall distribution of the variables has a very low dispersion fluctuating around the mean value hypothetically indicating the error of central tendency.
Regardless of the interpretation of the results it is clear that the study of satisfaction is extremely important personal practice, which allows to shape, develop and improve human resource management strategies. Taking into account the opinion of employees in shaping effective staffing decisions is a subject of and a modern approach to personnel management.

Agata Borowska-Pietrzak, Ph.D.
The author is a lecturer in Personnel Management Department in Organization and Management Institute of University of Gdańsk in Sopot. The main scope of interest is focused on performance and appraisal systems, non-material motivation systems, methods of shaping the commitment, and empirical surveys in the area of HRM. The author is also cooperating with University of Economics in Wrocław, and WSB School of Banking in Gdańsk in the area of postgraduate studies related to Human Capital Management.