Job Satisfaction
How can you increase your job satisfaction?
Understanding job satisfaction and how to evaluate your own is critical to strengthening your career well-being - liking what you do every day. That influences how long you live! It also impacts your job performance and engagement.
Only 48% of U.S. workers are satisfied with their jobs - and that was before the COVID 19 pandemic. With dissatisfaction so high, how can you avoid it? Or, if you are working and dissatisfied, what can you do about it?
First, understand the different types of job satisfaction and why they are important. Then you can decide what applies to your situation and what to do next.
2 types of job satisfaction
Overall job satisfaction is actually a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction:
Intrinsic: when you consider only the kind of work you do, the tasks that make up the job.
Extrinsic: is when you consider work conditions, such as your pay, coworkers, supervisor, and senior management.
It helps to look at jobs from both points of view. For example, if you are dissatisfied with your current job, ask yourself, "Am I dissatisfied because of the kind of work I am doing (intrinsic) or is it related to my work conditions (extrinsic)?"
Your answers will bring important clarity; you may even need to change employers at least once to make sure of your observations. Changing employers is a very different decision and investment than changing careers. It doesn’t mean either is easy, but knowing why you need to make a change will increase your confidence.
If you’re self-employed, you also have to factor in the unique nature of being your own boss. While being an entrepreneur may involve more freedom and unique benefits, there are also unique challenges. Typically self employed people must do tasks they would not normally have to do if they worked for an employer (accounting, marketing, finding customers). How much dissatisfaction is related to running a business vs. the business activities themselves? It’s a trade off and you just have to decide what’s right for you right now.
Job satisfaction and a potential mismatch with job expectations
Job satisfaction is also influenced by job expectations. What do you look for in a job? Security, pay, prestige, independence? Over time, our expectations and needs change. For ideas and self-reflection, read our ten most popular job expectations.
Now, here is a step-by-step self-reflection guide so you can decide what to do next.
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1. Know yourself.
Write down what you like and don't like about working. What values are important to you? Write down what you expect from a job. Then, you will know what to look for when choosing among jobs or careers.
Rank the "ten job expectations" most frequently mentioned by workers. Are there others, not mentioned, like autonomy or prestige, that are important to you?
2. Research jobs that meet your expectations.
There are lots of career options out there. To help focus your choices, use Career Key Discovery to find jobs that match your personality and the rewards (intrinsic and extrinsic) they offer. You may need to consider a career change.
3. Consult a professional career counselor.
Sometimes you need extra support and an expert's perspective to help you decide what to do next. Learn how to choose a professional career counselor in your area.
4. Don't ignore job dissatisfaction for too long.
Your level of job satisfaction predicts your job performance and engagement. Dissatisfaction may lead to something worse – job loss, accidents, even mental illness. Depression, anxiety, worry, tension, and interpersonal problems can result from, or be made worse by job dissatisfaction. In fact, job satisfaction was found to be the best predictor of how long you live... better than a doctor's rating of physical functioning, use of tobacco, or genetic inheritance. So, it is important to work out a solution if your job makes you unhappy.
5. Have realistic job expectations.
Like many things in life, overall job satisfaction is a trade-off. People experience dissatisfaction even in the best jobs. And, in today's work world, you cannot expect your company to look out for you; you have to take the initiative yourself. Our Resources will help give you ideas.
6. Separate dissatisfaction with the kind of work you do from the conditions of work.
If you are increasingly dissatisfied with the kind of work you are doing, you should consider a career change. If you are dissatisfied with the conditions of work, you may be able to solve the problem by changing employers or negotiating with your current employer to make changes.
7. Is your dissatisfaction temporary?
Look down the road at your possible career progress. Present dissatisfactions might be worth bearing if you see your career progressing.
8. Examine your values.
You have to answer this question honestly: How important is your job, your career to you? Only when this question is answered can you put your job satisfaction or dissatisfaction in proper perspective.
Next, keep exploring our Resources, which will help you decide how to put all this information together.