Job satisfaction, simply put would refer to one being content with their job or aspects of their job. Not long ago a group of researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle carried out a survey (Job Satisfaction and Morale in the Ugandan Health Sector). Their abstract began with the following observation:
Ugandan Health workers are dissatisfied with their jobs, especially their compensation and working conditions. About one in four would like to leave the country to improve their outlook, including more than half of all physicians. Policy strategies to strengthen human resources for health in Uganda should focus on salary end benefits (especially health coverage), working conditions and work load, facility infra-structure( including water and electricity), management and workforce camaraderie.
One would be excused to believe that the health sector is the worst hit but wait and take peek into other sectors like Education, Police, Manufacturing, etc and you will be surprised by what you find in there; but the question is what or who is responsible for this plunge in workers' job satisfaction and what can we as a country do about it?
There may be a number of factors that affect job satisfaction but common among these are aspects like pay, management practices like supervision, workplace Health and safety policies, employee training and development policies, employee exit, etc. When one looks at this list he/she finds that it is basic managerial deficiencies that is responsible for the nose-dive job satisfaction has taken. If indeed this is the case, then I can't over emphasize the the fact that organizations actually shoot themselves in the feet (or rather managers do).
An HR guru once wrote that what you ask for in an employee is what you get, I can,t agree more.
