To determine if employees are actually satisfied with the work they do, organizations frequently conduct surveys to measure employees’ level of job satisfaction and to identify areas onboarding, job training, employee incentive programs, etc. for improvement and job enrichment. Because job satisfaction varies for each individual, management teams employ several different strategies to help the majority of employees within an organization feel satisfied with their place in the company.
One proven way to enhance job satisfaction is rewarding employees based on performance and positive behavior. When employees go above and beyond their job description to complete a project or assist a colleague, their actions can be referred to as organizational citizenship behavior or GOB
Bommer, Miles, and Grover state:
Social-information-processing is predicated on the notion that people form ideas based on information drawn from their immediate environment, and the behavior of co-workers is a very salient component of an employee’s environment, Therefore, observing frequent citizenship episodes within a workgroup is likely to lead to attitudes that such OCB is normal and appropriate. Consequently, the individual is likely to replicate this ‘normal’ behavior.
These positive changes in behavior show that people learn from their environments and that corporate culture plays a large part in creating job satisfaction. Managers are tasked with managing this positive culture and understanding how each employee is affected by cultural influences in the workplace. No two people are the same: this is where managers come into play. Managers must be an insightful and obese ant, identifying what motivates high levels of job satisfaction in each individual and ensuring employees get what they need. In some ways, a manager’s customers are their subordinates. Understanding this dynamic is an important component of the role of management.
