Impact of Demographic variables on Job Satisfaction

Transcription

1 ABSTRACT Impact of Demographic variables on Job Satisfaction Dr. Anita Singh, Chairperson-HR, Institute of Management Studies (IMS) & Dr. Rinku Sanjeev, Associate Professor-HR, Institute of Management Studies (IMS) C 238 Bulandshahr Road Industrial Area, Lal Quan, G.T. Road, Ghaziabad The success of a corporation depends very much on customer satisfaction. A high level of customer service leads to customer retention, thus offering growth and profit opportunities to the organization. There is a strong relationship between customer satisfaction and job satisfaction.a major problem faced by Insurance sector today in increasing job dissatisfaction among its Sales Managers.In this study the researcher has tried to find out the reasons that lower the satisfaction level amongst employees by linking the demographic factors like Age, Tenure and Gender. It was surprisingly found that Job satisfaction level in the insurance industry is quite high with a total of 59.3% of the total respondents agreeing that they were satisfied with their jobs in contrast to only 26% of those who were dissatisfies. There were 14.7% of respondents who remain neutral on the issue The analysis also revealed that Women were comparatively more satisfied (74% were satisfied) with their job in contrast to their male counterparts (only 44% were satisfied).job satisfaction and age has a U-shaped curve i.e. it increases from the age of of age and declines between 26-30, slightly rises between and then rises from there on till above 40.It revealed that satisfaction increases with increase in the tenure of a person and maximum job satisfaction occur in the tenure range of 4 to 6 but then dips for people with tenure of 7 to 10 but then again rises for employees with tenure of more than 10. Key Words: Demograhic variables, Job Satisfaction, Insurance Sector 1. INTRODUCTION: As we know in today s scenario Insurance industry occupies a prominent place among the various financial services that operate in the world. In this competitive environment the success of the organisation depends on the customer satisfaction.customer satisfaction is linked with the job satisfaction of employees. As the Insurance Sector is growing employee s contribution in the success of the organisation cannot be denied.it is vital for the organisation to identify the factors that lead to satisfaction of the employees and also to identify the impact of the demographic variables on the satisfaction level of employees. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW: Job satisfaction is an affective or emotional response toward various facets of one s job. A person with a high level of job satisfaction holds positive attitudes towards his or her job, while a person who is dissatisfied with his or her job holds negative attitudes about the job.according to Locke (1976), Job satisfaction is as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one s job or job experiences. Kovach, (1977), stated that Job satisfaction has been recognized as a component of organizational commitment. It is a result of employee's perception of how well their job provides those things that are viewed as important. Mitchell and Lasan (1987) said, it is recognized in the organizational behavior field that job satisfaction is the most important and frequently studied attitude. Job satisfaction is a result of employees perception of how well their job provides those things which > RJSSM: Volume: 02, Number: 09, January-2013 Page 40

2 are viewed as important. From the above definitions, it is clear that job satisfaction is an unobservable variable. Job Satisfaction and Demographic Variables The level of job satisfaction across various groups may not be consistent, but could be related to a number of variables. This allows managers to predict which groups are likely to exhibit behavior associated with dissatisfaction. Older employees are generally satisfied with their jobs. Herzberg, Mausner, Peterson, and Capwell (1957) identified several characteristics of satisfied/dissatisfied workers. They indicated that morale is high when people first start their jobs. Morale decreases during the next few and remains at a relatively low level until workers are in their late twenties or early thirties. At this time, job satisfaction levels begin to rise and continue to rise through the remainder of the workers careers. The same trend is found in regard to a worker s length of service. Workers begin with high morale, which drops during the first year and remains low for a number of.then as length of service increases, job satisfaction levels tend to rise opined by Davis (1988), Sheppard and Herrick (1972),(Organ, 1988; Organ & Konovsky, 1989). Although this may change as their chances of advancement get diminished and they face the reality of retirement. Concerning gender, there are no simple conclusions about the differences between males and females and their job satisfaction levels. Further, some studies have evaluated job expectations in terms of gender. Chusmir and Parker (2001) argued that because women and men have different expectations in life, their job expectations also differ. Some studies reviewed by Herzberg et al. (1957), Henning & Jardim, (1977) indicate that males are more satisfied with their jobs that require problem-solving because they are more result-oriented, while Mason, (1994) indicate that females are more satisfied. Because women enter the work environment with the expectation of being able to socialize, they are more satisfied with jobs that allow them to interact with others. Literature also supports that workers with more education have a higher job satisfaction level, while other studies indicate that workers with more education have a lower job satisfaction level. Other studies showed no relationship between the two. However, studies that considered a worker s level of education and job satisfaction found mixed results. Some studies discovered that job satisfaction increases when education level increases (e.g., Gurbuz, 2007; Verhofstadt & Omey, 2003), but others had results to the contrary (e.g., Gardner & Oswald, 2002; Klein & Maher, 1966; Seybolt, 1976). Herzberg et al. (1957) suggested that a clear conclusion cannot be drawn concerning job satisfaction and its relationship to marital status, number of dependents, number of previous occupations, different studies have claimed that job expectations are related to demographic factors rather than to personal characteristics. According to Hansanbanu, and Nagajyothi, (2007) there is significant relationship between age, educational qualification, gender, occupation and income of respondents and their level of investment with taking LIC policies and in their study they also found that there is no significant relationship between marital status, family type and family size and their investment in insurance sector. Lester (2010) concluded that life and non-life premiums are very low relative to expected levels given per capita income and demographic characteristics, and examine the causes of such poor performance. Khupe (2011) finds the influential role that demographic variables play in individual/household financial decisions, a matter which warrants further research into the nature and direction of the indentified influences. 3. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY In this study the researcher has tried to find out the reasons that lower the satisfaction level amongst employees by linking the demographic factors like Age, Tenure and Gender. The main purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between Job Satisfaction and demograhic variable, specifically gender, age and tenure of an employee. 4. METHODOLOGY The population for this descriptive correlation study was employees of Insurance sector. The study was conducted in Delhi, NCR. In this study top ten players of Insurance sector were covered. The organizations under study were: Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company Limited, ICICI Prudential Life > RJSSM: Volume: 02, Number: 09, January-2013 Page 41

3 Insurance, Reliance Life Insurance, HDFC Standard Life Insurance, Tata AIG Life Insurance, Bharti Axa Life Insurance, Birla Sun Life Insurance, Max New York Life Insurance, ING Vysya and Aviva Life Insurance. The sampling size taken for this project consisted of total 150 respondents from mainly sales department because according to the problem at hand this category of employees have major amount of job dissatisfaction in them. 5. DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS Frequency Distribution for Job Satisfaction Level In order to find out if the respondents were satisfied with their job in insurance sector they were asked to rate their satisfaction on a scale of 5. (1 being strongly agree and 5 being strongly disagree). It was seen that 20% of total of 150 respondents strongly agreed that they were satisfied to work for their company, 39.3% agreed that they were satisfied while 22.7% disagreed and 3.3% strongly disagreed, 14.7% were neutral on this question. This showed that a total of 59.3% were satisfied while only 26% were those who were dissatisfied with their job. So overall there is a high level of job satisfaction in insurance sector refer Table-1. Crosstabs for Gender and Job satisfaction in insurance sector H O : There is no significant difference between the gender and job satisfaction in insurance sector H 1 : There is a significant difference between the gender and job satisfaction in insurance sector. After testing the level of job satisfaction in insurance sector it was imperative to test whether gender of a person plays any role in maintaining job satisfaction. Therefore, cross-tabulation was done between gender and job satisfaction (refer Table 2 in annexure).table 3 in annexure shows that Asymp. Sig. value is which is less than 0.05 hence the null hypothesis H0 is rejected and it can be fairly concluded that there is a significant difference between the job satisfaction of males and females. Table 2 shows cross tabulation between gender and job satisfaction. It shows that there are 9 males who strongly agree and 24 who agree that they are satisfied with their jobs as opposed to 21 females who strongly agree and 35 females who agree so a total of 33 males out of 75 are satisfied with their jobs while 56 females out of 75 are satisfied with their jobs. Crosstabs for, relationship between age of a person and Job satisfaction. H O : There is no significant difference between age of a person and job satisfaction. H 1 : There is a significant difference between age of a person and job satisfaction. Several researchers reported that in industrial setting,job satisfaction and job involvement increases with age and as a result occupational stress decreases (Cherrington, 1979) therefore it was needed to study the impact of age on job satisfaction in insurance sector to test this cross-tabulation was used between age of a person and his job satisfaction. It was observed that job satisfaction increased with increase in age (refer Table 4). It was observed that the Asymp. Sig. value was which is less than 0.05 and hence the null hypothesis is rejected so there is a significant difference between age of a person and job satisfaction (refer Table 5).As already mentioned job satisfaction increases with increase in age. From Table 4 it can be seen that maximum number of respondents who agree or strongly agree that they are satisfied with their job, lie in the age group of above 40. Table 6 also suggests that a total of 76.7% respondents with the age above 40 were satisfied with their job which is highest. > RJSSM: Volume: 02, Number: 09, January-2013 Page 42

4 Figure 1: Age and job satisfaction curve The age and job satisfaction curve in Figure 1 is U-shaped it rises from of age and declines between 26-30, slightly rises between and then rises from there on till above 40. The respondents in the young adult group (26-35) must have put relatively short period in service. They may be getting adjusted to their jobs as well as to the demands and adjustments of young married life. Perhaps the reduced job satisfaction in young adults might have resulted from their occupying lower status positions in organization as a result of which they have minimal organizational power and little control over work demands. Under such circumstances it may be expected that, compared to the middle aged who are more or less settled in their personal as well as work life s, young adults found their jobs much more stressful.this is in corroboration with the previous studies and hence it can be said that as age increases job satisfaction in turn increases which leads to decrease in stress level of an individual. Crosstabs for, relationship between tenure of a person and Job satisfaction. H 0 : There is no significant difference between tenure of a person and his job satisfaction. H 1 : There is a significant difference between tenure of a person and his job satisfaction. In order to examine the impact of Job satisfaction in insurance sector on the tenure of a person chisquare was applied with the help of cross tabulation between tenure and job satisfaction. It was observed that the value of Asymp. Sig. was which is less than 0.05 and hence the null hypothesis is rejected which implies that there is a significant difference between job satisfaction and tenure of a person. Table 7 clearly illustrates this fact. From Table 8 it is observed that maximum job satisfaction occur in the tenure range of 4 to 6. It can also be observed from figure 2. It shows that job satisfaction increases till the tenure of 4 to 6 but then dips for people having tenure of 7 to 10 but then again sharply rises for employees with tenure of more than > RJSSM: Volume: 02, Number: 09, January-2013 Page 43

5 Satisfaction by tenure Satisfaction below 3 months 3-11 months Tenure above Satisfaction Figure 2: Tenure and job satisfaction curve One of the main reasons for this peculiar behavior may be that job satisfaction increases when a person is sticks with the company for longer duration and company implements retention techniques but after the tenure of 6, employees might be looking for newer avenues with better opportunities so their satisfaction level dips. But if the company is able to retain its talent force for more than 10 then employees become stable and contended with their work and hence the sharp rise in satisfaction level. This fact is also shown in Table 8 which depicts that employees with tenure of more than 10 strongly agree that they are satisfied with their jobs. 6. CONCLUSION: The research shows that job stisfaction level in the insurance industry is quite high in Delhi and NCRThe analysis also reveals that,women were comparatively more satisfied with their job in contrast to their male counterparts.the study also suggests that Job satisfaction increases from the initial i.e, age of and declines between 26-30, slightly rises between and then rises above 40.It revealed that satisfaction increases with increase in the tenure of a person.hence a relationship was established between Job satisfaction and demographic variables.the study confirms that age,gender and tenure of the employee involved in sales profile of the insurance sector impacts the job satisfaction. LIMITATIONS: The sample in this study might not be reflective of the entire population. The sample size was small as compared to the entire population of the insurance sector.the scope of the project is limited to Delhi & NCR only so, it cannot be said that the same response will exist throughout India. However this study can be used as a base for future research. REFERENCES: 1. Chusmir, L. H., & Parker, B. (2001). Success strivings and their relationship to affective work behaviors: Gender differences. The Journal of Social Psychology, 132, Davis, K. (1988). Human behavior in business, Istanbul University Faculty of Business Administration Publications. 3. Gardner, J., & Oswald, A. (2002). How does education affect mental well-being and job satisfaction. [Online] Available: 4. Gurbuz, A. (2007). An assessment on the effect of education level on the job satisfaction from the tourism sector point of view. Dogus University Dergisi, 8, Hasanbanu, Dr. S and Nagajoyhi, R S, A Study of Insurance Perspective in Uthamapalayamtaluk, Indian Journal of Marketing, May 2007, pp > RJSSM: Volume: 02, Number: 09, January-2013 Page 44

6 6. Henning, N., & Jardim, A. (1977). The managerial woman. New York: Ancho Books. 7. Herzberg, F., Mausner, B., Peterson, R.D. and Capwell, D.F. (1957). Job attitudes: Review of research and opinions. Pittsburgh: Psychological Service of Pittsburgh 8. Klein, S.M., & Maher, J. R. (1966). Education level and satisfaction with pay. Personnel Psychology, 19, Kovach, K.A. (1977). Organizational size, job satisfaction, absenteeism, and turnover. Washington, D.C. University Press of America 10. Lester Rodney,2010 The Insurance Sector in The Middle East And North Africa: Challenges pdf (October, 3, 2010). 11. Locke, E. (1976). The nature and causes of job satisfaction. In M. D. Dunnette (Ed.). Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology ( ). Chicago: Rand McNally. 12. Mason, E. S. (1994). Gender differences in job satisfaction. The Journal of Social Psychology, 135, Mitchell, T.R. & Lason, J.R. (1987). People in organization. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. 14. Organ, D. W. (1988). A restatement of the satisfaction-performance hypothesis. Journal of Management, 14, Organ, D. W., & Konovsky, M. A. (1989). Cognitive versus affective determinants of organizational citizenship behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, Seybolt, J. (1976), Work satisfaction as a function of the person-environment interaction. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 17, Sheppard, H. L., & Herrick, N. Q. (1972). Where have all the robots gone? Worker dissatisfaction in the 70s. New York: The Free Press. 18. Verhofstadt, E., & Omey, E. (2003). The impact of education on job satisfaction in the first job. Working paper no. 03/169, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium. ANNEXURE Table 1: I am satisfied to work for this company Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid strongly agree agree neutral disagree strongly disagree Total Table 2: Gender Cross-tabulation I am satisfied to work for this company Gender "male" "female" Total I am satisfied to work strongly agree for this company Agree Neutral Disagree strongly disagree Total > RJSSM: Volume: 02, Number: 09, January-2013 Page 45

7 Table3: Chi-Square Tests Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Pearson Chi-Square (a) Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association N of Valid Cases 150 Table 4: Age Cross tabulation I am satisfied to work for this company Age Total Above 40 I am satisfied to strongly agree work for this Agree company Neutral disagre e strongly disagree Total Table 5: Chi-Square Tests Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Pearson Chi-Square (a) Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association N of Valid Cases 150 Table 6 Derived from Table5 Age Above 40 I am satisfied to work for strongly agree this company Agree Total no. of respondents % of satisfaction 62% 37% 57% 71% 78% Table 7: Chi-Square Tests Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Pearson Chi-Square (a) Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association N of Valid Cases > RJSSM: Volume: 02, Number: 09, January-2013 Page 46

8 I am satisfied to work for this company Table 8: Tenure Cross-Tabulation I am satisfied to work for this company Less than 3 months 3 months- 11 months Tenure 1 year 3 year Table 9: Derived from Table 8 4 year 6 year 7-10 year More than 10 Total strongly agree agree neutral disagree strongly disagree Total I am satisfied to work for this company Total no. of respondents % of satisfaction Less than 3 mths 3 mths- 11 mths Tenure 1-3 yr More than 10 Total strongly agree agree % 57% 59% 70.6% 58.8% 69.2% > RJSSM: Volume: 02, Number: 09, January-2013 Page 47