The employees' job satisfaction is highly regarded and view as a very important element to run and maintain an efficient and successful business. Dissatisfaction result low productivity and weaken the organization competitiveness. Seiko Epson is taking steps to maintain its employee job satisfaction in order to increase the competitive in order to increase business effectiveness and make the overall company performs better.
Introduction
Seiko Epson is a global company with various affiliates around the world. The employees' job satisfaction is highly regarded and view as a very important element to run and maintain an efficient and successful business.
Job satisfaction is described as the employee's attitude towards his or her job. A satisfied employee will generally be a good employee. (Robbins S P. 1998.) The working environment is a factor of an employee's job satisfaction. The attitudes and values can affect the behavior of the employee at work. Positive attitudes result in higher productivity. On the other hand, negative attitudes can result in lower efficiency at work.
Turnover rate and absenteeism are related to job satisfaction as well. An unsatisfied employee has a greater chance to be absent more often. Employees who are unsatisfied will leave the company. However, sometimes the unsatisfied employee may stay even they are unsatisfied. On the other hand, the employee with positive personalities that may leave faster. As a result, The company left with the negative employee while the positive employee left. It is not a good situation to the company.(Liberman, K.. (2010, November). It is important for the company to motivate the employees to be more satisfied at work. This paper is to analyze the many factors affecting job satisfaction and how Seiko Epson is taking steps to maintain the employees job satisfaction in order to increase business effectiveness and make the overall company performs better.
Reasons of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction
Job satisfaction includes an employee's personality, expectation of the company and his or her own personal views. One's personality can also affect the self satisfaction level at the work place. A staff with more aggressive personality may have a higher expectation of one's self and thus more motivated to work. Vice versa, one with more laid-back personality may slow to reach his or her full potential.
The concept of the "Job Fit Theory" is quite important in an organization. The staff who assigned a position that fits their ability and personalities can encourage job satisfaction and reduce turnover rate. The characteristics of the jobs can affect the attitude of the employees. A nice and helpful team at work can improve the job satisfaction of the staffs. (Loannis Nikolaou. (2003).
Factors affecting job satisfaction in Seiko Epson Corporation
Job satisfaction can be affected by many factors, such as the relationship between the staffs and management, the working culture and workplace atmosphere, the self-fulfillment on their jobs, the position and the reward system etc.
The work place atmosphere affects job satisfaction of the employee. When the job load is constantly at an unreasonable high level, the chance of stress may have a greater chance to affect the employees working attitude and even personal life. Job satisfaction will suffer and cause the productivity to dip and error rate increased.
Seiko Epson views the staff's health as a priority and promotes the "3 minutes exercise" twice per day to reduce the stress level of staffs. Seiko Epson is also setting up an overtime working control system to monitor the staff's work hour in order to make sure the staffs have a balanced career and quality personal life.
Employees are much more satisfied if they can be in charge of challenging and interesting projects that make use of their abilities at the fullest. The degree of challenge and the opportunities to increase the responsibility can encourage staff satisfaction and make them more motivated at work. Manager should let the employees to make their own decisions and set up working goals together. (Bhatti, K., & Shahzad, I.. (2008). With the use of the MBO systems, Seiko Epson allow staffs to plan their annual work goal with their supervisor to achieve the company goals together.
It may cause a negative effect if an employee feels the effort he or she contributed is not properly compensated. There is always a possible conflict between the employee and employer that the employer wants the employee to be more productive and the employee wants to get better pay from the employer. This is related to the rich literature in economics between the principals and agents (Holmstrom, Bengt (1979)
Researchers find that the higher the prestige an employee feels about his or her job, the greater the job satisfaction. (Slesinski, Ray. (1991, August). To consider the relationship between effort and job satisfaction, Seiko Epson practices a "pay for performance" philosophy to rewards the employee with good performance and achievements. Thus, the better compensation can encourage better job satisfaction, motivate employee to be more productive and reduce any negative effects.
The employees always compare their employment status with the standard of living within the region. If the condition is better than the standard, the employee will be in a relatively satisfied state. In order to guarantee the income and well-being of its employees, Seiko Epson periodically review the salary and benefits compare among the region and industry peers.
Finding and Analysis
Seiko Epson believes that by strengthening the satisfaction level of its employees, it can help the business runs better. It had been using a set of effective policies to maintain its employees satisfaction level and protect their own interest. It has created a culture for each individual's contribution to the company and promotes the teamwork spirit. Seiko Epson keeps providing training opportunities to its employees to further develop and maximize the staff ability to contribute back to the company.
Conclusion
In order to keep the company in a competitive state, management has to continuously attract and keep good quality and experienced employees. Dissatisfied staff may generate internal conflicts, lack of trust among workers and high stress level will affect the working environment and cause productivity to decrease. The employee should be trained to realize their own career contentment rather than expect the employers to make them satisfied. (Hafran, M., & Garton, J.. (2010, August). Seiko Epson should continue to motivate its employees in a positive manner to help promote job satisfaction, which will result in increase productivity and reduce turnover rate, and ultimately become a more successful business.
