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What Is the Connection between Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment?

Jan Fletcher
Jan Fletcher

Job satisfaction may be defined as contentment with one’s job. The connection between job satisfaction and organizational commitment is clear. When an employee has allegiance to the employer, his or her productivity increases, turnover rate decreases, and negative behaviors including employee theft also decline. A satisfied employee is typically much more committed to the employer than an employee who is dissatisfied.

Moral considerations can have an impact on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. A satisfied worker may feel a moral obligation to act in a committed way. Continuance commitment, on the other hand, expresses the concept that job commitment hinges on a cost/benefit equation for the employee. In some cases, the employee may feel no moral commitment to the employer.

Events such as office parties may contribute to employee satisfaction.
Events such as office parties may contribute to employee satisfaction.

Many companies engage in a variety of techniques and strategies to improve job satisfaction and raise organizational commitment levels with staff members. These include team-building strategies, in which employees work together in a way that creates a tightly knit bond. Those who feel strongly attached and connected to the workplace typically tend to feel more of a calling to their profession, and a higher commitment level to the organization in general.

Team-building stategies may help create a higher commitment level to an organization.
Team-building stategies may help create a higher commitment level to an organization.

Financial rewards are not the only determining factor in job satisfaction. Employees often place a significant value upon their relationships in the workplace. In addition, fringe benefits may sometimes be just as important to an employee as financial compensation. Some companies demonstrate their commitment to employees through providing ancillary services like subsidized lunches, rewarding achievers with extra time off work, and providing family support services like on site childcare.

Interpersonal conflicts may have a negative impact on employee satisfaction.
Interpersonal conflicts may have a negative impact on employee satisfaction.

One way for a company to increase job satisfaction is to offer an appropriate and effective compensation plan. Secretive payment schemes, arbitrary compensation policies, and a perception of the boss playing favorites are all ways to plant the seeds of discontent. Compensation specialists are sometimes brought into a company to perform a compensation review. This ensures that compensatory practices are fair and competitive within the company’s industry sector, leading to increased loyalty and commitment to an organization.

Interpersonal conflicts potentially may have a negative impact on employee satisfaction, and lower a worker’s commitment to an employer. If the employee experiences harassment and the employer does not address the problem, the worker’s commitment may fade in the face of the need for self-preservation. Having clear policies regarding workplace harassment has been linked to higher levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Discussion Comments

anon333092

Job satisfaction is absolutely not contentment. You can't have job satisfaction, intrinsic or extrinsic, without employers budgeting for jobs and investing to make you satisfied. It is conditional, based on people you don't control and things you cannot always have.

On the other hand, contentment is an emotion created by how you think. By reasoning alone, you can choose to be content with or without being made satisfied. More than doing what you love, contentment involves loving what is as you work toward what you desire.

Contentment has been overlooked as a source of emotional resilience. For example, when you love someone deeply enough to overlook their flaws that cause your dissatisfaction, that's the power of contentment. Satisfaction can't do that, because you cannot control what that person does or does not do to make you satisfied. All you can control are your thoughts to regulate your emotions.

Satisfaction is a condition, while contentment is an emotion.

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    • Events such as office parties may contribute to employee satisfaction.
      By: Halfpoint
      Events such as office parties may contribute to employee satisfaction.
    • Team-building stategies may help create a higher commitment level to an organization.
      By: Karin & Uwe Annas
      Team-building stategies may help create a higher commitment level to an organization.
    • Interpersonal conflicts may have a negative impact on employee satisfaction.
      By: michaeljung
      Interpersonal conflicts may have a negative impact on employee satisfaction.