THE RELATION OF WORK CULTURE TOWARDS JOB SATISFACTION AND JOB PERFORMANCE AMONG TEACHERS IN VOCATIONAL COLLEGE

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1 THE RELATION OF WORK CULTURE TOWARDS JOB SATISFACTION AND JOB PERFORMANCE AMONG TEACHERS IN VOCATIONAL COLLEGE Katijah Abu Bakar Abd Razak Zakaria Abdul Muhsien Sulaiman Educational Foundations and Humanities, Faculty of Education University of Malaya, Malaysia Corresponding authors: Abstract: The aim of this study is to examine the relation of work culture towards job satisfaction and job performance of teachers in vocational colleges, which undergone the transformation from Vocational School to Vocational College. We also look in depth the aspects of job satisfaction by analyzing the level of job satisfactory of teachers in Vocational Colleges in Malaysia. The study will be conducted using quantitative research methodology. Variables of the study consist of work culture, job satisfaction, and teachers demography. A Likert scale data analysis will be used inferentially by Predictive Analytics Software (PASW). Key words: Vocational College, job satisfaction, work culture 1. Introduction The transformation in Technical and Vocational Education has caused several changes in technical secondary schools and vocational colleges. In year 2013, 79 units of secondary schools have upgraded into vocational colleges which offer 12 fields of study and 53 courses. These vocational colleges endeavor to achieve 70 percent of their graduates employed in industrial sector, 20 percent to further studies in university or other tertiary institutions while 10 percent involve in entrepreneurship. As a result, the entire work culture and educators burden will increase. These changes also proposed that educators should construct experiences for students in both theory and practical learning. Hence, educators should be equipped with suitable, contemporary knowledge and adequate experiences to cater the needs in the area taught. Therefore, the educators obligation now is not only teaching but also forming the curriculum (Nurul Nadya & Rohana, Amirmuddin, 2011). Greatest challenge faced by the educators is to automatically become an expert according to the market's needs. The transformation created many changes which indirectly caused certain pressure to the educators as a whole especially the work culture and job satisfaction. Both elements affect the quality of the educators performance. It is crucial to maintain them as the quality of performance is highly depending on both elements stated above. It is necessary to improve performance as it would give impact to the organizational culture directly or indirectly. Examples of these impacts include performance improvement, maximization on productivity (indirectly), employees commitment, job satisfaction and readiness to serve the organization. Working culture will be different as this shift portrays several differences between a vocational college and a secondary vocational school. Most educators in vocational colleges are forced to teach courses which are not in their expertise unlike the secondary vocational school. As

2 the changes are meant for future market demand, the curriculum and content of the Technical and Vocational Education are also altered. The adjustment ultimately affects the existing educators to shift from their expertise to something new. Consequently, educators happened to feel the lack of satisfaction as they are unable to perform their best in imparting the unfamiliar knowledge. A study conducted found over 60% of women who play several roles such as mother, wife and employee suffered from stress and sickness due to work pressure and unsatisfied interest over the work (Goveas, 2011; Ronald, Mustafa, Purbudyal, Nihat, Kadife, 2012). Some researchers found that the relationship between leaders and workers within an organization is crucial. The elements of this relationship are motivation, effective communication and appreciation that promote a positive low affective filter working environment especially when it deals with something 'new' which is the whole system of school (Delguzzi, 2011; Ana, 2003; Boyad, Lyndon & Malker, 2012). Furthermore, solid tools of motivation like coffee maker or any exercise equipments promote better quality performance and interest in work place (Dellguzzi et.al, 2011) 2. Research Focus Parents are having high expectations towards educators as the prime movers in educating their children. As an educator, educational institutions play a vital role in shaping working personalities and directly influenced job satisfaction (Jonathan, 2012). In the act of status upgraded from vocational school to college, educators' working culture has shifted along with the additional workload. The changes in conjunction with the transformation in Technical and Vocational Education have totally affected all the elements such as work pressure, workload, role and unclear objectives. These following studies pointed out the relationship between working culture and stress in government and private organization. The important environmental factors of an organization like conflict, high workload and environment lead to either contented or burnout workplace (Sushma, 2009 & Brewer, 2002; Mehdi, 2013 & El- Nahas, Mohamad El Salam, Shawky, 2012). Additionally, it is also shown in a study conducted among employees of several hotels located in Macao found that weak job satisfaction leads to weak interpersonal skills to provide good services to their customers. A study carried out to examine relationship between demographic factors and working culture among teachers in Kota Setar district in Kedah, indicated working culture does not influenced by demographic factors such as gender, education and school level. Adding on is a research focuses on transformational leadership and cognitive readiness on working culture (Abdullah, 2010). This research analyses the employees' acceptance towards new working culture and the duration for the previous working culture to be replaced and the factors of it (Smrita, Sing, Gupta & Rajul, 2010). At the same time, a study stated that college lecturer must be placed in tertiary education service scheme and not teacher scheme. The role of a college lecturer is much challenging when they are entrusted to operate various education course namely Education Postgraduate Teaching Course, Pre- Special Program Graduates Teachers, Special Graduate Program of Foreign Affairs. Hence, Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Teacher Education Division should have generated some motivators in the work culture such as promoting reward grant, implement increment salary scheme, increase annual, conference or research leave as motivator for lecturer to perform their tasks and eventually will contribute on teaching productivity (Jainabee, 2005). The same scenario should have happened in vocational colleges in Malaysia as they are educators who teach diploma students which corresponded to Institute of Higher Learning. Relatively, a case studied on State Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) where working satisfaction is less motivated due to low dimensional wages. This is the common phenomenon faced by the public sectors

3 personnel as they are bonded with a service scheme and SEDC policy and civil service regulations (Ali, 1998). On top of that, when changes occur in terms of policy especially in the Division of Technical and Vocational, it causes an extension of burden and pressure to the teachers. The imbalance of work and life in certain organization is one of the reason which raises work excess and causing pressure (Mohamad Imra, Fareeda Salim, Mehbood Ahmad, 2010). Furthermore, issues had risen when vocational college teachers are forced to attend courses and trainings regarding new requirement of the job market. A study found 71.5 percent of hotels employees who are lack of skill attended trainings or courses to regain satisfaction towards their job. Therefore skills or training can increase worker's satisfaction. This study anticipates this reason for teachers to attend trainings as they do not have the skills to teach vocational college (Zheng Gu, Ricardo Chi Sen Siu, 2008). Even though training plays an important role in improving productivity and employee wages, somehow imbalance training opportunities among employee causes diverse levels of wages. These training opportunities also differ according to province and very much depended on the province's development (Ismail, Zuridah and Noris, 2011). The workers should train and educate each other in order to increase employee competency, performance and competitiveness. Subsequently, supportive working environment will come into sight and job satisfaction among employees will increase. In this case, educators who teach in this area should have working experiences and latest knowledge in the industry. This will result in a better quality aligning with requirement of the job market (Nurul Nadya, Rohana & Amirmudin, 2011). A skilled work force is a basic condition to ensure change and development in structuring an economic growth of a country (Azmi,Wan Fadzillah, Suhaila, Susana, Norhayati & Nur Dalila, 2011). This can be developed through rewards, recognition, and fair increment. These can motivate and increase employees job satisfaction (Norasamah Ahmad, Zuraidah Ahmad, Mohd Izham, 2010). There is also insignificant between job satisfaction and balance work and life. They concentrate on the relationship between job satisfaction and counterbalance in work and life. A study which relates work culture aspect and its impact to the workers stated that, workplace is a significant factor which can help workers to sustain equilibrium between their jobs, family and reduce stress. This visible problem does not give focus to work culture with work satisfaction. This issue has risen because educators' job satisfaction is a crucial element in educating the nation (Mariam, 1997; Aminah & Zoharah, 2010). Hence, review of previous findings enable researcher to understand teacher's burdened task in transforming from vocational school to vocational college. Apart from that, researcher is able to investigate in terms of educator's salary increment. Transformation to vocational college need to be aligned with the salary accordingly but it is not happening and this condition will raise work dissatisfaction among educators in vocational colleges. Training and improvement needed for educators to convey necessary skills to students based on present and future job requirements. Meanwhile educational aspect and learning syllabus are also different from the older one. Most of the syllabus implemented have changed and need to be improved. Furthermore, teacher's workload has also risen up because teacher got involved with school-based assessment and unclear decision on students graduation whether students will graduate in respective college or a place which will be determined by Division of Technical and Vocational Education. This issue has to be pressured. 3. Purpose of the Study The aim of this study is to examine the relation of work culture towards job

4 satisfaction and job performance of teachers in vocational colleges, which undergone the transformation from Vocational School to Vocational College. We also look in depth the aspects of job satisfaction by analyzing the level of job satisfactory of teachers in Vocational Colleges in Malaysia. The objective of this study are to: 1. Identify the level of teachers work culture and demographic factors in Vocational Colleges in Malaysia. 2. Identify the level of teacher s job satisfactions in Vocational Colleges in Malaysia. 3. Determine whether there is a relationship between job satisfaction and work culture. 4. Determine whether there is a relationship between the components of work culture in Vocational Colleges in Malaysia. 5. Determine whether there is a relationship between demographic factors and work culture that affect job satisfaction. 4. Methodology This research will be using quantitative research methodology via questionnaire to collect data. This research aims to examine job satisfaction and work culture in vocational college. The work design used in this research refers to the survey method proposed by Wiersma (1991). The design is chosen based on a huge population size and researcher has chosen descriptive and inferential analysis. Descriptive study acts as elaborating and explaining something or situation once at a time and the data collected from the descriptive study can help to identify and improving the findings. (Chua, 2006). The survey items are built on main construct in this research. The study focuses on the job satisfaction and work culture in vocational college. This research involves several levels which are: 1. The independent variables are work culture and teacher s demography, while the depending variable is job satisfaction. 2. Work culture and job satisfaction as independent variables and work performance as a depending variable. 3. Work culture as an independent variable and job performance as a depending variable. 5. References Ali Bin Boehannoeddin. (1998). Budaya pengurusan dan Prestasi organisasi : Kajian perbandingan ke atas empat Perbadanan Kemajuan Ekonomi Negeri (PKEN). Tesis Doktor falsafah fakulti ekonomi dan pentadbiran. Universiti Malaya. Ahmad, N., Ahmad, Z.,Hamzah,I. (2010). Pengaruh Amalan Pengurusan Sumber Manusia(PSM) terhadap hasil PSM di IPTS bukan bertaraf universiti. Jurnal Pengurusan 31. Aminah Ahmad,Zoharah Omar.(2010). Perceived family supportive work culture,affective commitment and turnover intention of employees. Journal of American Science.6(12). Ana Claudia Quadros Gomes.(2003). Cultural assessment of employee motivation in the Brazilian Hotel Industry: A comparison between the northest and Southest. University of Nevada, Las Vegas Andre, B., Sjovold, E., Holmemo, M., Rannested T.,Ringdal G.(2013). Expectations And Desires of Palliative Health Care Personnel Concerning Their Future Work Culture Azmi Ahmad, Wan Fadzilah Wan Abdullah, Suhaila Abd Rahman, Norhayati Yahaya.,Susana Ling Hie King, Nur Dalila Abdul Wadud.Kajian tahap kebolehkerjaan pekerja Lulusan Sistem DualNasional (SLDN) di alam pekerjaan.jurnal Pengurusan Jil Boyad.A., Lyndon.S., Malekar.S. (2012). An empirical study of employee satisfaction in

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