EVALUATING THE JOB SATISFACTION OF EMPLOYEES WORKING

EVALUATING THE JOB SATISFACTION OF EMPLOYEES WORKING IN LA HIEN CEMENT LIMITED COMPANY An undergraduate dissertation Presented to The Department of Economics and Management International School of Thai Nguyen University The Socialist Republic of Vietnam In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Bachelor of Arts Major in Business Administration and Finance By Bui Viet Huong May 9, 2016 DECLARATION FOR ORIGINALITY I, Bui Viet Huong, hereby declare that the study reported herein is my original work I have not copied from other students’ work or other sources or asked anyone to write some part for me All information derived from published and unpublished works of others has been acknowledged in the list of reference This research has not been previously presented anywhere for a similar purpose May 9, 2016 Bui Viet Huong ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to extend thanks to the many people, in many countries, who have generously contributed to the work presented in this thesis Most of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to La Hien Cement Limited Company (especially Human Resource Division and the whole employees of the company) and the International School of Thai Nguyen University (especially Department of Business and Management) for providing good facilities and needed information for my research This dissertation would not have been possible without the help of employees in filling in the questionnaires that provides primary data to conduct this study My sincere thanks also goes to my supervisor, Ms Nguyen Thi Hang for the continuous helping me in every single step of doing this dissertation With her patience, enthusiasm and motivation, I could not imagine having a better supervisor for my graduation thesis And I would like to express my sincere thanks towards participants who devoted their time and willingness to answer the questionnaire Without their important information, the researcher cannot complete this study Last but not the least, I would like to thank my parents for giving birth to me at the first place and supporting me spiritually throughout my life Friends who always standing beside me, sharing with me even happiness or sadness, encouraging me to achieve every important goals in my life They are such a second family for me ABSTRACT This is a descriptive study about the job satisfaction of employees working in La Hien Cement Limited Company by using regression to test the factors (variables) such as demographic information of employees, salary, working environment, motivation & career development, policy of compensations & benefits, work design, supervisor and colleagues The study aims to evaluate level of employees’ job satisfaction and propose some possible solution for the company to improve their employee loyalty The quantitative data and qualitative data that can be quantified are collected by using questionnaires and analyzed by using regression The study has proved that salary, working environment, work design and supervisor are the factors that didn’t make employees satisfied but the remained factors did TABLE OF CONTENTS a) List of figures…………………………………………………………………………… b) List of tables………………………………………………………………………… c) a) b) List of figures: Figure 4.1 The gender distribution of employees Figure 4.2 Marital status distribution of employees Figure 4.3 Age distribution of employees List of tables: Table 4.1 Employees’ working Time Frequency Distribution Table 4.2 Reliability Statistics Table 4.3 Item-Total Statistics Table 4.4 Average mean of affecting variables I CHAPTER – INTRODUCTION This chapter covers all information about the research topic, background of the study, statement of the problems, all of the terms & definitions that are used in the study, research objectives, research questions, scope and limitation of the research and the research hypotheses I.1 Introduction to research topic Human resource is considered as the heart of the organization and it is being more and more important for every organizations The organization performance depends much on the performance and competence of its employees Nowadays, every single country in particular and every single organization in particular, they all need to have a competitive labor force to adapt and meet the need of the knowledge economy and globalization Human resources are being cared more and more Attracting talented people is one of the most competitive factors between companies Hiring intelligent people, good employees for the company is very important but making those people satisfied when they work in the company is more important than that because with the satisfaction, they can devote their talents, their knowledge for the company more loyally Moreover, “satisfaction level of employees for the company” is one of the important criteria to evaluate the level of company’s human resource administration, and even it also affects to the company’s image in the labor market Big companies or small companies, they all need to evaluate the employee satisfaction for their human resource administration and also for developing the company, and for a young company in Thai Nguyen province like La Hien Cement Company, it may be more important In this regard, researcher decided to carry out a research name “Evaluating the job satisfaction of employees working in La Hien Cement Limited Company” to help the company to see if their employees are satisfied, how they are satisfied and base on the result of this research, researcher wants to propose some suggestions to help the company keeping employee’s loyalty and also attracting the potential human resource in the local area I.2 Background of the study Job satisfaction is one of the important concepts in Human Resource Management In the economy market, every company is standing in a high competitive market situation whereas labor forces play a very important role in achieving the company’s goals and missions Thus, the organizations have to the right thing in the right time for their human resource management to have competitive advantages against others Caring for employees’ needs & wants and making them satisfied is very important The satisfaction of employees can be understood by how they feel about their job, if they are happy with their job and working environment of the company The satisfied workers they feel happy and work more productive than others, take fewer days off than others and keep their commitment and their loyalty longer with the company There are many factors can affect to and also many factors can help the company to improve and maintain their employees’ satisfactions, performances and loyalty so the companies have to evaluate the job satisfaction of their employees Weiss, Dawis, England and Lofquist (1967) argued that there was a relationship between job satisfaction and some factors such as salary usability, achievement, activity right, security, independence However, those authors also pointed out that the future researcher should investigate clearer about the policy, work design, promotion & career development and working environment That suggestion partly led the researcher to conduct a study about job satisfaction in a relationship with the factors suggested The following documentation is a research conducted based on analyzing impacts of demographic information, salary, working environment, work design, policy of compensations & benefits, promotion & career development, leadership style and colleagues factors on job satisfaction of the whole employees working in La Hien Cement Limited Company I.3 Statement of the problems La Hien Cement Limited Company has been existed in La Hien commune, Vo Nhai district, Thai Nguyen province since 2008 Even being a new company, the company has attracted and recruited a crowded labor force but the rate of employee’s job movement has been quite high in recent years Currently, company has 583 employees, divided into groups: managers & official staffs (130 people), direct producing staffs (451 people) About gender composition, the company has 103 female employees (17.7%) and 480 male employees (80.3%) About professional qualification, the number of employees has university and upper university qualification is 148 people (24.5%), college degree, secondary, technical workers is 379 people (65%) and 56 unskilled employees (9.6%) The crowded labor force has had significant contribution for the company to achieve the goals Although the company has been trying to create a good working environment for employees and also the chances for them to develop their talents, strengths, knowledge and skills, the number of employees leave the company is still being very high, about 10% (according to the company’s statistic in 2015) Some employees feel unhappy with their work, they don’t have any direct reports or lamentations to the company managers but they usually complain with each other about the company and even want to move to other companies in Thai Nguyen like Sam Sung, Shinwon Ebenezer Company Moreover, up to now there has been no research about job satisfaction of the employees conducted in the company since its operation I.4 Statement of the study purpose In the regards of the problems above, this research aims to help La Hien Cement Limited Company to evaluate their employees’ job satisfaction and suggest some possible solutions for them to enact policies or strategies to improve, maintain their employees’ satisfaction, employees’ performances and productivity I.5 Research Objectives 1) To identify factors affecting to the job satisfaction of employees working in La Hien Cement Limited Company 2) To evaluate level of job satisfaction of employees working in La Hien Cement Limited Company 3) To propose possible solutions for La Hien Cement Limited Company to improve, maintain their employees’ job satisfaction, employees’ performances, productivity and loyalty I.6 Research questions 1) What are the factors can affect to the job satisfaction of employees working in La Hien Cement Limited Company? 2) How or in which level those factors affect to the job satisfaction of employees? 3) What are the possible solutions to help La Hien Cement Limited Company to improve, maintain their employees’ job satisfaction, performance, productivity and loyalty? I.7 Research Hypotheses H1: Demographic information (age, gender, education, personality) affect proportionally to the employee satisfaction H2: Salary affects proportionally to the employee satisfaction H3: working environment and condition affects proportionally to the satisfaction of employees H4: Promotion and career development affect proportionally to the satisfaction of employees H5: Policy of compensation and benefit affect proportionally to the satisfaction of the employees H6: Work design affects proportionally to the employee satisfaction H7: Colleague or group work affect proportionally to the satisfaction of the employees H8: Leadership style affect proportionally to the employee satisfaction I.8 Significance of the study The significance of the study is that La Hien Cement Limited Company has not undertaken any research in the area of employees’ job satisfaction since its operation Thus, this is the first study that can help the company to understand the factors that can affect to the job satisfaction for their employees and find out possible strategies to improve or maintain it I.9 Scope and research limitations  Scope of research The study is taken in a selected company named La Hien Cement Limited Company within months, from February 5, 2016 to April 5, 2016 with the participation of 583 employees working in the company Questionnaires were used to collect primary data given by every single employees and the collected primary were used to investigate how the factors/variable affect to the job satisfaction of employees by using regression analysis  Limitation of the research The study was investigated base on the provided information of the employees working in the company so it’s just a single case of La Hien Cement Limited Company that may not be representative and widely applied for other cases I.10 Definition of terms Some of the terms using that are understand differently in this study are defined and presented herein  Job satisfaction Job satisfaction is a concept that has been defined in many standpoints Many people defined that employee job satisfaction is a measure of how the employees feel about their jobs, working conditions and working environment In the viewpoint of Spector (1997) job satisfaction can be simply understand as how an individual is with his or her job whereas Weiss (2002) defined job satisfaction is a pleasurable emotion, an effective reaction and a positive attitude toward someone’s job However, in this study, research defines job satisfaction is the gap between employees’ expectation and their perception about their job, working conditions and policies of the company  Demographic information of employees Pfeffer (1983) defined employees’ demographics information is the composition of a social entity in terms of its members’ attributes The demographic information of employees includes age, gender, marital status, level of income and occupation The research just simply follows the definition of Pfeffer by including some factors of demographic information which are valuable for explanatory purpose of this research  Salary Salary is this document herein is understood as a fixed amount of money that employees receive monthly from the company in return for their work performed  Working environment Working environment is the physical geographical locations and immediate surroundings of the workplace like office buildings, facility, and infrastructure  Compensations and benefit Compensations and benefits are the monetary values the company gives to employees in return of the employees’ contributions to the company such as subvention, insurance and, rewards and awards  Promotion and career development Promotion and career development can be defined as ongoing process due to the company’s needs and employee career interest to improve the knowledge and skills of employees and create opportunities to advance their career  Work Design Work design is how the nature of work organized such as workload, work tasks, work conditions, working time  Leadership style In this study, leadership style is understood as how employees feel about the managerial system of the company and also how they interact with their managers and supervisors  Colleagues Colleagues are people who work in the same company, group or organization II CHAPTER – LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter aims to address different theories and perspectives investigated by numerous authors with the regards of employees’ job satisfaction and also factors affected to the job satisfaction of employees II.1 Job satisfaction Job satisfaction is one of the most intensive topics for doing research, many researches; theories have been investigated to explain about job satisfaction and its influence Employees’ job satisfaction was defined as the fulfillment of someone’s needs, wants, and desires Satisfaction depends basically upon what people want and what they get, Nancy C Morse (1997) This definition of Nancy could be a good theory based that made the definitions of job satisfaction in the years 1990s become more diversified A decade after that Bhatti and Qureshi (2007) defined job satisfaction is how happy workers are with their jobs These two authors also specified in his study that job satisfaction is one of the factors that may influent to organizational effectiveness An effective organization should have culture of encourage or improve employees’ job satisfaction On the other hand, Moyes, Shao and Newsome (2008) described job satisfaction as how pleased employees are with their position of employment Job satisfaction is a concept that has presented in diversified definitions and perspectives However, in the study presented herein, research defines job satisfaction not only as the term used to measure whether employees are happy and contended and fulfilled with their needs and wants but also researcher just simply understand job satisfaction is the gap between employees’ expectation when they get the job and their perception after working for the company in the selected position for a period of time within the job indicators II.2 Demographic information of employees and job satisfaction Demographic information can be understood as some personal information of the employees such as gender, age, marital status, level of income, working position, level of education In the many decades, demographic information has been thought as one of the factors that may affect to the job satisfaction of employees and many researches have been conducted to investigate the relationship between job satisfaction and demographic information The research of Jaime (2004) proved that the demographic factors of faculty members had a relationship with the overall job satisfaction Canon and Miller (1992) found out that degree status, age and working time of agricultural teachers who are participants of their study didn’t have any significant influence on the job satisfaction of those teachers However, Bas and Ardic (2002) proved that there was a positive correlation between age and job satisfaction Mina Shirvani, Asghar Mohammadi, Mohammad Reza Iravani, Saeed Yourself Pour, Allahayar Arabmomeni, Shirin Mirhaj and Akram Fakhri Fakhramini (2013) investaged that marital status had a meaningful relationship with job satisfaction but gender did not Moreover, in the study named Effect of Demographic Factors on Job Satisfaction of Non - Academic Staffs in Universities of authors Yapa, Rathnayake, Senanayake and Premakumara (2014) investigated that there was a significant relationship between the civil status and age of non – academic staffs and their job satisfaction but gender and education level didn’t have any influences on job satisfaction These group of authors also found out that single staffs had a higher level of satisfaction than married staffs (it was about 9.8 compared to 8.7 out of 20) The age of staffs also had a significant effect on the job satisfaction of the staffs, the staffs in the age of twenty to forty was more satisfied than the staffs in the age of forty one to sixty II.3 Salary and job satisfaction Salary is of the most attractive factors for employees to choose a company to work for The relationship between salary and job satisfaction of employees has been done by many researchers Locke Feren, MCCaleb, Shaw and Denny (1980) argued that “No other incentive or motivational technique comes even close to money with respect to its instrumental value”, page 379 Many people believed that raising salary and financial benefits is a magical way to increase the level of job satisfaction of employees The research named “The Shape of The Relationship between Salary and Job Satisfaction: A field study” of Dr Marwan T Al Zoubi (2012) presented a supported finding for that point of view This study found out that the job satisfaction of employees was absolutely increased by the increase of salary However, Timothy A Judge, Ronald F Piccolo, Nathan P Podsakoff, John C Shaw and Bruce L Rich (2010) had published a study which proved that pay level or salary only marginally related to the job satisfaction and even the increase of salary was directly related to the decrease of job satisfaction was found out by Lauri Young, Morgan Milner, Dave Edmunds, Germaine Pentsil and Michael Broman (2014) – a group researchers in Eastern Michigan University II.4 Working Environment and Job Satisfaction Siti Zawiah MD Dawal and Zahari Taha (2008) – two Malaysian authors conducted a study about the effect of job satisfaction and environmental factors in automotive industries and the results of their study indicated that environmental factors had a significant relation to job satisfaction Another research of Thomas J Destefano, Henry Clark, Megan Gavin and Thomas Potter in 2009 also proved that there was a significant contribution of organizational (environmental) factors to 11 dimensions of job satisfaction It seemed like environmental and job satisfaction always have positive relationship with each other However, Tomislav Babic (2012) presented a result of no statistical significant relationship between job satisfaction and working environment were found after this author conduct a study in a Croatian Building Company II.5 Promotion & career development and job satisfaction Training activities has a high impact on employees’ job satisfaction Providing timely information about the training programs and learning courses for employees is very important and one of the best ways to develop ideas is organizing trainees to work in a team, R Vijayalakashmi (2008) In banking sector, Sobia Shijaat, Saira Sana, Faisal Aftab and Ishtiaq Ahmed (2013) conducted a study about the influence of career development on employees’ job satisfaction in private banking sector of Karachi and the group authors found out that career development and job satisfaction had a positive relationship with each other In another research about promotion & career development and job satisfaction, Osibanjo Adewale Omotayo, Salau, Odunayo Paul, Falola and Hezakiah (2014) did a research about job satisfaction in Negeria banking industry based on factors: salary, promotion, incentives, award, relationship and benefit One of the key findings of those authors in the study was salary and promotion had a strong positive effect on job satisfaction II.6 Policy of compensation & benefit and job satisfaction Feheem Ghazanfar, Shuai Chuanmin, Muhammad Mahroof Khan and Mohsin Bashir (2010) have published a research about relationship between Job satisfaction and compensation & benefit conducted by using Chi Square and correlation This group authors found out that: policy of compensation & benefit could be a factor affecting to job satisfaction, flexible pay was not a factor to motivate and improve employees’ satisfaction and benefit did not have any influences on the job satisfaction of the research’s participants II.7 Leadership and Job satisfaction Leadership has been also considered as one of the factors that may affect to the job satisfaction Leadership may include information about supervisors’ truth, behaviors, management quality, the interaction between managers and employees and so on Kristin L Straiter (2005) proved that there was a significant relationship between supervisor truth and job satisfaction of employees working in a pharmaceutical company at New Jersy Besides that, Lilian M De Menezes (2012) believed that a quality management can improve employee’s involvement by empowering them, leading them, however, after conducting research, this author found out that it was no significant relationship between quality of management and the job satisfaction of employees although desired workplace outcomes were associated with job satisfaction III CHAPTER 3– RESEARCH METHODOLOGY All information about conceptual framework, research design, participants, data collection, and data analysis techniques is presented in this chapter III.1 Conceptual framework The conceptual framework simply indicates how the study presented herein was conducted Firstly, researcher screened literature and also collected information about the current situation of La Hien Cement Limited Company to find out factors that may affect to the employees’ job satisfaction Researcher found out factors may affect to the job satisfaction of employees are: employee’s demographic information, salary, work environment, work design, policy of compensation & benefit, colleague, promotion & career development and leadership Then, researcher made a list of questionnaires and distributed them to the whole employees of the company and based on the primary data collected from the questionnaires to analyze the employee’s perception that lead to the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of employees The results finding will be used as a database to propose some possible solution for the company to improve or maintain their employee’s job satisfaction and employees’ loyalty Demographic information Salary H1 H2 Working environment Promotion & career of Policy compensation and benefit H3 H4 LEVELS OF EMPLOYEE’S JOB SATISFACTIONS/ DISATISFACTION H5 H6 Colleagues H7 Work design H8 Leadership Figure 3.1: Conceptual Framework Employee’s loyalty III.2 Research Design All information about research design such as research purposes, research strategies, the methods choices and the sampling techniques is presented below  Research purpose The study is conducted with descriptive purposes It is not only simply describes the background of the study, current status of human resources of La Hien Cement Limited Company, demographic information of employees and identifies factors that may affect to the job satisfaction of the employees working in the company but also the levels influence of those factors to the job satisfaction of the employees working in La Hien Cement Limited Company  Research strategy Structured interview is used as a strategy in this study Research did a survey to collect primary data from the participants through a list of designed questionnaires  Research method choice The research using mixed – methods Both of primary quantitative data and primary qualitative data that can be quantified (such as some factors demographic information of employees) are collected and analyzed III.3 Data Collection The whole information about variables, source of data, data collection technique and data collection tools is presented herein  Variables There are variables are used in this study which were found out after reviewing literature and screening information about the company’s situation such as: demographic information of employees, salary, working environment, promotion & career development, policy of compensation & benefit, colleagues, work design and leadership  Source of data Data using in the study mainly are given primary data collected from the employees working in La Hien Cement Limited Company  Data collection techniques Researcher designed did a survey in the whole population of employees working in La Hien Cement Limited Company Distributed the questionnaires that researcher had designed to every single employee working there and collected them  Data collection tools The data collection tool is questionnaire A list of questionnaires were designed based on the factors using in this research and measured by five – point Likert scale ( = very satisfied, 4= satisfied, 3= neuter, = unsatisfied, = very unsatisfied) III.4 Participants This part shows the information about population, sample size, sampling techniques  Population Population of the study is the whole employees working in La Hien Cement Limited Company  Sample size The sample size is 583 employees (the whole number of employees) that include 130 official staffs and 451 direct producing employees 17.3% of them are female and 80.7% are male The number of upper university and university educated employees is 148 people; secondary education is 379 people, and unskilled worker 56 people  Sampling technique Population is the chosen sampling technique for the study because the sampling frame only has 583 employees and they work in a same place or group so that it is easier to meet and ask for need information Moreover, the needed data collection can be achievable in that number of samples within the planned due time for doing survey is one month but the result of the research will be more significant and highly appreciated III.5 Data processing and analysis All information about data analysis techniques and measurements is presented below  Descriptive statistic Descriptive statistic was used to analyze demographic information of employees such as age, gender, marital status, time of working, and education levels In this situation, mode is the most suitable measurement to use  Testing of Cronbach’s alpha reliable Cronbach’s alpha is used to test the reliability of the scales used in the research Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients will use for testing and correlation of total variables The variables not guarantee reliable models will be excluded from the study and cannot appear when exploratory factors analysis VI REFERENCE VII APPENDICES Questionnaires SURVEY QUESTIONAIRE About evaluating the satisfaction of employee working in La Hien Cement Limited Company Basic information (personal factors) What is your name? Your gender: Male Female Your Age 18 - 25 26 – 35 36-45 45> 55 > 55 Marital status Single married widow How long have you work for the company < months – years years more than years You circle the numbers below to select the level of assessment of you for the following informatio and the maximum of 5: – very bad – very good Salary My salary is paid based on the policy of the Government I’m paid adequately for what I contribute to the company I can receive my salary on the due time I can get 100% of my salary Working environment I’m provided an office to work My office is beautiful, clean, fresh and comfortable My office is provided equipment, machines that needed for my work 1 Company provide monthly workwear for me Promotion and career development I experience personal growth such as updating skills and learning different jobs 10 I am provided training courses by the company to improve my work performance 11 Company makes me feel motivated 12 I have chance to go to a higher position Policy of compensation and benefits 13 Company pays for my health insurance 14 I get compensation when working in hazardous working environments 15 Company pays 200% -300% salary for my extra working hours or working in the holiday 16 I’m rewarded for the quality of my efforts 17 Company give me at least a holiday per year Workload 18 My job requirements are clear 19 I’m provided a job that is suitable with my ability, knowledge and skills 20 The workload is not too heavy for me 21 Company usually ask me to work extra time Leadership style, supervision 22 My supervisor is knowledgeable about my work 23 I’m valued for my supervisor 24 My supervisor takes time to listen to me 25 My supervisor promote me 26 Company makes sure I have sufficient training Colleague 27 I have many good colleagues in my workplace 28 My colleagues always willing to help me with my work and care for my emotion, my feelings 29 My colleagues respect me 30 Company give me chances to work with and learn from my colleagues 31 Company organizing activities, parties to make the relationship between us be more closer 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ... understand job satisfaction is the gap between employees? ?? expectation when they get the job and their perception after working for the company in the selected position for a period of time within the job. .. on the job satisfaction of the staffs, the staffs in the age of twenty to forty was more satisfied than the staffs in the age of forty one to sixty II.3 Salary and job satisfaction Salary is of. .. different theories and perspectives investigated by numerous authors with the regards of employees? ?? job satisfaction and also factors affected to the job satisfaction of employees II.1 Job satisfaction