The happy worker is the productive worker, right? Not necessarily. Indeed, much of the past research on job satisfaction suggests that at the individual employee level, job satisfaction and performance are weakly related. However, this finding tends to go against common sense. Doesn’t it seem reasonable to believe that employees who are satisfied at work perform better than those who are not as satisfied or dissatisfied at work? It apparently does to many researchers and thus the search for clarification continues.
THE RESEARCH STUDY
Recently, researchers (Whitman et al., 2010) conducted a meta-analysis, or statistical combination of many past studies. The results suggest that while the relationship between satisfaction and performance may be weak at the individual level, satisfaction may still be important for predicting performance when measured at the group level. In other words, the researchers hypothesized that work groups with more satisfied employees may tend to outperform work groups with less satisfied employees. It is important to mention that group-level satisfaction represents an aggregate of the group members’ levels of job satisfaction. That is, every group member plays an important role in determining the satisfaction level of the work group.
As the authors note, there are a number of performance indicators that can also be meaningfully measured at the work unit level, including productivity, customer satisfaction, withdrawal behavior, and organizational citizenship behavior (which means going the extra mile).
THE BOTTOM LINE
The results suggest that job satisfaction at the work group level is, in fact, important for predicting a variety of performance indicators. Importantly, the relationships tend to be stronger than those found in past research, which measured these outcomes at the individual employee level. Specifically, work units with satisfied employees are more productive, engage in more organizational citizenship behavior, and receive higher customer satisfaction ratings than work groups with less satisfied group members. Further, satisfied work units have lower rates of turnover and absenteeism.
So while the satisfied employee may not necessarily be the productive employee, the satisfied work group does seem to be the more productive unit.
Whitman, D.S., van Rooy, D.L., & Viswesvaran, C. (2010). Satisfaction, citizenship behaviors, and performance in work units: A meta-analysis of collective construct relations. Personnel Psychology, 63, 41-81.
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