Factors affecting performance

Abstract

The paper studied the influence of job satisfaction, age, and level of education on teacher performance in New York High school. The aim was to establish the association between performance and satisfaction. The sample consisted of 21 teachers from New York high school to complete questionnaires on the influence of job satisfaction on teacher performance. The survey design used was descriptive. The collected data was analyzed using Ms. Excel. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to summarize. Correlation analyses revealed the existence of a positive association between satisfaction and performance. The results of several regression analyses confirmed that job satisfaction and age significantly predicted job performance. From the study, we conclude that study job satisfaction plays a vital role in employee performance.

1.0 Introduction

Despite being an essential factor for success in organizations, the link between company performance and job satisfaction have yielded unpredictable results. Some studies report a crucial positive relationship between job satisfaction and performance, while some studies report results in irrelevant results. This confirms that the relationship between the two variables is complex (Bakotić,2016).

The performance of employees is a significant challenge in any organization. Job satisfaction is believed to be a significant factor that influences employee performance. Demotivated or demoralized employees are unlikely to offer their best, which results in low productivity, and this generally affects overall performance in an organization. It is, therefore, logical to conclude that motivating employees to make them feel satisfied with their work is one way of making an organization achieve its objectives and become more competitive (Lee & Wu,2011). Employees are responsible for daily operations in any organization and are regarded to be an essential business resource. In a learning institution, dissatisfied employees are probable to affect the performance and survival of the institution. This means that the efficiency of any organization depends on how satisfied and thus, productive employees are.

Job satisfaction is generally considered as the “degree of positive affect toward the overall job and its components “(Weisman, Alexander & Chase,1980, p.342). Many studies have used organizational characteristics and personal attributes to predict job satisfaction among different types of employees. Most studies often assumed that individual perceptions are major causal factors. For instance, in the case of personal characteristics and job satisfaction among Greek teachers, findings showed that teachers were dissatisfied with reward and promotion opportunities. Individual features like age and gender significantly predicted job satisfaction among Greek teachers (Koustelios & Kousteliou, 1998). Literature also suggests that employees opt to be more contented with satisfactory pay, good working relations, and participation in the decision-making process. In a hospital setting, identifying factors influencing job satisfaction can be used to address the issues of quality care and level of performance. Previous studies reported job perception, workload, and individual characteristics as significant predictors of job satisfaction (Weisman et al.,1980). This is critical since efforts made by employees in any organization is essential to its survival. A worker that is highly contented with his or her occupation has a positive attitude towards his or her work. Equally, a worker who is not satisfied with his or her job has a negative attitude towards the work. This implies that job satisfaction has managerial consequences. High satisfaction results in better job performance, while low satisfaction results in poor performance.

2.0 Literature review

This section presents a critical analysis of findings from past studies on the association between job performance and job satisfaction.

2.1 Concept of job satisfaction

Positive emotions in a job depend on whether an individual meets his or her expectations. The positive emotions are an indication of job satisfaction (Akeke, Akeke & Awolusi,2015). Morrison (2008) opines that better job performance and reduced withdrawals are definite signs of job satisfaction.

Demoralized employees are detrimental to an organization’s success. Understanding employees and their motivating factors are, therefore, crucial to organizations. Company executives and policymakers, therefore, takes the subject seriously. An organization should, therefore, strive to make employees feel the pleasure of what they do to enhance the performance of employees and make an organization more competitive (Akeke et al. ,2015).

Scholars define work satisfaction differently. Hoppock (1935) view satisfaction as a mixture of physiological states and psychological environment that defines individual contentment in what they do. Based on this definition, the measure of job satisfaction depends on the causes of satisfaction. Kaliski (2007) views satisfaction as a feeling of success by workers in their roles. This, in turn, influence employee wellbeing and performance.

The notably used meaning of job satisfaction state that satisfaction manly depends on how individuals feel about their job, the degree to which one hates, or like his or her job (Spector,1997). These feelings about specific jobs, whether positive or negative, are the leading causes of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction in any organization (Davis &Nestrom,1985). Vroom (1964) believes that satisfaction depends on the level of orientation given to s individuals on their task; he emphasizes employees’ role in any organization. Job satisfaction can be regarded as a psychological response of a worker to his or her job. The individual responses have affective, behavioral, and cognitive-behavioral components (Halin & Judge,2003).

2.2 Measures of job satisfaction

Most organizations do measure job satisfaction internally by conducting an internal survey. Workers are asked how satisfied or dissatisfied they are with their duties. Nevertheless, an individual can be contented with an aspect of the job and, at the same time, not satisfied with another. For example, an employee may be satisfied with his salary but not satisfied with the relationship with colleagues.

Job satisfaction is viewed in different dimensions by scholars. This is attributed to the fact that even workers working in the same organization may exhibit different levels of satisfaction on various features of their work. Measuring job satisfaction is complicated since a vast range of variables is considered including social, organizational, Individual, environmental, and cultural factors. Some social factors affecting job satisfaction reported in the literature include opportunities for interaction and relationships with fellow workers. Orientation to work, level of education, age, intelligence, and marital status are some of the individual factors cited in the literature. Beliefs, underlying attitudes, and values are some of the cultural factors identified from past studies.

Environmental factors affecting job satisfaction encompasses social, technical, economic, and government influence. The factors are believed to affect job satisfaction of some employees under some situations. For example, job security tends to be of concern to employees during inflations. Within an organization, factors such as formal structure, size, and human resource policies have been identified as some of the factors affecting satisfaction.

2.3 Determinants of job satisfaction

According to a study conducted by Rue and Ryaes (2003), determinants of job satisfaction include working conditions, advancement, opportunities, job groups, and financial rewards like salaries. These determinants determine the degree of work satisfaction or dissatisfaction, which in turn influences the level of employee performance. In their study Squires, Hoben, Carleton, and Graham (2015) note that although workers who are not satisfied with their works may not leave their jobs, the quality of performance of such employees can be significantly impacted. Such employees tend to be hostile to their colleagues, and this can affect the performance of their colleagues as well. Bose, Donders, and Bounman (2009), in their case of determinants of job satisfaction from the viewpoint of employees, concluded that that job satisfaction has five elements composed of support from superiors, relationship with co-workers, skill discretion, independence, and chances to further education.

In his analysis of job satisfaction, Aziri (2011) opined that employees who are satisfied with their roles are pleased and are very active when performing their duties. Interestingly, he argues that analyses of previous studies show a weak relationship between employee performance and job satisfaction and claims a high level of job satisfaction does not translate to high-level performance.

In a case study to explore the association between job satisfaction and job performance amongst public service officials in Malaysia, Rose, Kumar, and Pak (2011) noted that organizational commitment was positively related to work performance, company learning, and job satisfaction. Similarly, Raza et al. (2015), in their case on job satisfaction and performance among sales representatives, concluded that there existed a strong association between job performance and satisfaction. Similar findings are reported in a study of the job performance of hospital nurses in Riyadh Region, Saudi Arabia. Employee performance was recognized to be positively correlated to job satisfaction (Al- Ahmadi, .2009).  Harun (2010) in his case study on work satisfaction among university librarians in Malaysia confirmed that role clarity and role conflict significantly predicted the degree of job satisfaction, the study further reported that organizational commitment was significantly impacted by work-related variables than job satisfaction.

Similarly, a case study on the relationship between job satisfaction and various demographic factor, Azeem (2010) found a substantial positive relationship between demographic factors and job. Similarly, Ukia and Suki (2011), in their research which established that the perception of job satisfaction did not differ by gender from their regression analysis. Similar results are reported from a study by Lumley, Coetzee, Tladinyane, and Ferreira (2011) on employee satisfaction and performance from a cross-sectional quantitative survey with a sample of 86 workers in four companies in South Africa. The correlation and regression analyses showed that the two variables are significantly related.

2.4 Enhancing job satisfaction

In their study of the effect of job satisfaction on organizational obligation, Akeke et al. (2015) suggest that job satisfaction can be enhanced by accommodating employees’ concerns in managing their duties. An employee who is given the freedom of expression becomes more responsible and will carry out duties effectively without supervision.

In some organizations, managers offer rewards to employees who have achieved milestones in their roles. This makes an employee more motivated to carry on with a particular task and may become more innovative in the long run. Similarly, some organizations motivate their staff through rotation on various roles, and this enables such employees to learn other skills through job redesign. In some institutions have programs where many people share one task on a full-time basis, and this reduces the workload on a single employee (Akeke et al., 2015).

2.5 Employee performance

The effects of globalization have been felt worldwide. Many changes have been witnessed in the public and private sectors. These changes have also affected employee performance, either positively or negatively. This calls for organizations to come up with measures that can improve employee performance to ensure continued and improved success despite the challenges brought by globalization (Krishna, 2010).

Job performance among employees is a significant concern to managers in an organization. Liao et al. (2012) view employee performance as the standard for rewards, salary change advancements, and appraisals. Performance is also considered to be an indicator of the financial result of an employee, which impacts the performance of an organization and its achievements (Anitha,2013). In their study on employ performance, Ahmad and Khurram (2011) contend that the performance of employees signifies the wide-ranging belief of workers about their conduct, which helps an organization achieve its goal.

2.6 Measures of employee performance

The outward performance of workers shows their commitment towards achieving the goals of an organization. Moreover, performance evaluation, compensation, and promotion are said to be the yardstick for the performance of employees (Ahmad & Shahzad,2011). On the contrary, Alagaraja1 and Shuck (2015) suggest that regular training can be used to measure employee performance. This can be used to determine improvement. In their view, Thomas and Feldman (2010) consider security, innovation, and core-job performance as measures of employee performance. Furthermore, the environment int which a worker carries out his duties, compensation, and relationship with co-worker’s influence performance (Anitha, 2013).

2.7 Theoretical Framework

2.7.1 Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory:

From Maslow’s point of view, job satisfaction occurs when the environment in which individual works and job itself meet his or her requirements. High-level needs are self-esteem and self-actualization in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory. The theory classifies the needs into five categories according to significance; physiological, safety, belongingness, and love. The satisfaction of one need leads to the emergence of another need higher in the hierarchy (Maslow,1943). This motivates and enhances the performance of an employee to satisfy “higher” needs. Teachers who feel appreciated are satisfied with their duties, and this enhances their performance.

3.0 Methodology

The research aimed to explore the relationship between job satisfaction
and performance. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. Questionnaires were subjected to a sample of 25 teachers at New York high school. In a quantitative study, data is calculated by applying statistical analysis to collected data and results represented in numbers. Teachers were randomly selected and therefore had an equal chance of being selected. Although previous studies adopted scale from the study of Vandenabeele (2009) with five items varying from agreeing to disagree strongly, this study takes a different approach. Overall job satisfaction was scored on a continuous scale (0-100) with high scores indicating higher levels of satisfaction and low scores signifying low levels of satisfaction. Hence, questions for the measurement of the variables were adopted from past researches. Worker performance was scored on a scale (0-100) instead of adopting the previously used scale by Liao et-al (2012), a Likert scale with five items ranging from agreeing to disagree strongly. The score performance was measured as the average student scores over the past year. Higher student scores show a high level of performance by the teacher, while low scores show low levels of performance.

3.1 Objectives of the study

• To examine the association between job satisfaction and teacher performance.
• To establish the relationship between performance and level of education.
• To study the association between job performance and age.

3.2 Research Hypotheses

The study tested the following hypotheses:

1. Job satisfaction does not influence teacher performance in New York high school
2. Teacher level of education does not influence performance New York high school

• Teacher performance is not affected by age.

4.0 Data analysis and Results

Analysis of the collected data was done using Ms. Excel. A sample of 21 teachers completed questionnaires administered through non- probability sampling. The sample consisted of 11 males (52.4%) and ten female teachers (47.6%). The mean age of the respondents was 33.6 years. The mean age of female teachers was 33.2 years, while male teachers had a mean age of 33.9 years. The majority of the respondents sampled had a higher diploma (42.9%),33.3% had a diploma, while 23.8 % had a degree. The mean performance score was 62%, while the mean satisfaction scores were 72%. Table 1 shows the mean performance by the level of education.

Table 1. Mean performance scores across levels of education

The mean satisfaction scores did not differ significantly across the level of education, as shown in table 2.

Table2.Mean satisfaction scores across levels of education

Correlational analysis between satisfaction and performance revealed the presence of an essential positive relationship between satisfaction and performance (r=.64, p=.002). Age and satisfaction showed a positive relationship, although the association did not reach statistical significance. Performance and age were also positively correlated.

Table 3. Means, standard deviations and correlations for the three variables

The results standard multiple regression confirmed that satisfaction, age, and level of education meaningfully projected performance, F (2, 17) =4.39, p=. 018. Before conducting multiple regression, preliminary investigated were done to verify the assumptions of normality, homoscedasticity, and linearity were not violated. After controlling for satisfaction, the level of education did not contribute to the predictive ability of the model. Together, the three variables accounted for 43% variation in performance.

4.2 Discussion

The results reflect the views of sampled teachers according to the impact of these variables on performance and satisfaction. Teachers filled questionnaires on job performance and satisfaction. The higher the score, the higher the performance level and satisfaction with their jobs.

In line with previous studies, the result of the correlation analysis indicated that positive relationships exist between the variables; job satisfaction and performance. The correlational analysis was used since the two variables were continuous and as adopted by previous studies. In a cross-sectional survey study to investigate the relationship between worker’s satisfaction performance, Lumley, Coetzee, Tladinyane, and Ferreira (2011) sampled 86 employees in a tech company in South Africa. Correlational and regression analysis showed a significant association between the two variables.

The regression results also revealed the three variables; that satisfaction and level of education significantly projected performance, F (2, 17)=4.39, p=.018. Before conducting multiple regression, preliminary analyses were done to verify the assumptions of normality, linearity, and homoscedasticity were not violated. After controlling for satisfaction, the level of education and gender of the respondents did not contribute to the predictive ability of the model. Together, the three variables accounted for 43% variation in performance. Similar findings are reported in Suki and Suki (2011). In the case study, the relationship between satisfaction and performance did not differ by gender. Results of multiple regression analysis revealed that both males and females had the same perception of satisfaction.

The result of this study shows that teacher performance is positively related to satisfaction and education level. Teachers who are satisfied with their jobs are motivated, and this makes them enjoy their duty, thus improved performance. In fact, the correlational analysis showed a tremendous positive association between job satisfaction and performance. Similar findings are reported from previous studies. Akeke et al. (2015), on their study of the impacts of job satisfaction on organizational commitment, reported that job commitment is positively correlated with job satisfaction. Ahmad, Ahmad, & Shah (2010), in their study, reported that job satisfaction influences workers’ commitment to duty. The results of multiple regression analysis in their study further revealed that over 20% of the variation in job satisfaction is accounted for by attitude and organizational commitment.

In another study, Shore and Martin (1989) found that employee commitment to organization and job satisfaction affects employee performance and turnover. The correlational study confirmed that satisfaction was sturdily related to job performance, a clear indication that attitude towards duty affects performance ratings. Similarly, in Malik, Nawab, Naeem & Danish (2010) conducted a study on the influence of teachers’ job satisfaction and commitment in public universities in Pakistan. The outcomes showed that satisfaction with reward positively impacted teacher performance.

The paper’s findings show that job satisfaction is crucial for the growth of any institution around the world. Skills and professional knowledge occur when one feels satisfied with their roles in any organization or learning institution. One way of achieving this is through appreciation, which motivates an individual to perform at high levels in their duties. Motivation and need satisfaction are crucial as they form the basis of working according to Maslow’s hierarchy of requirements. Although teachers teach and are rewarded for performing their duties, they do agitate for satisfaction. In this context, satisfaction is the capability of the work to meet teachers’ needs and improve performance.

Teachers, therefore, need reasonable policies on education concerning their salaries and other benefits to satisfy their needs. Motivation promotes the psychological wellbeing of teachers which make them satisfied with their work and enhances their performance. Dissatisfaction could arise form teachers feeling that they are underpaid, unfavorable working conditions, and poor relationships among them.

5.0 Conclusions

Findings from previous studies confirm that job satisfaction is one of the challenges to managers in organizations. The available findings in the literature have also yielded inconsistent results. The results showed that job satisfaction has a positive correlation and significantly correlated with the worker’s performance. An increase in satisfaction results in a corresponding increase in performance.

This study examined the influence of gender, age, and job satisfaction on job performance in New York high school. State After investigating the influence of satisfaction, gender, and age on teacher performance, the study concludes that; worker’s performance is significantly associated with job satisfaction. Workers who are appreciated are likely to offer their best in their duties.

Resulting Pearson correlations showed employee satisfaction positively correlated to job performance. The study also confirmed that the mean score in not differs by age and gender. However, there was a positive association between age and level of performance. Older teachers are likely to exhibit a high level of performance due to the long period of service, which makes them highly experienced.

The research design adopted was in line with previous literature and the hierarchy of needs theory. The need-which emphasizes motivation as one way of satisfying an individual need. The results of this study support the work of previous researchers on job satisfaction and performance, which revealed that the two variables are positively related. With regard to study implications, the management of New York school will be able to make an evidence-based decision on how to improve teacher performance and satisfaction in the best interest of the institution.

5.1 Recommendations

Humans have their needs that need to be satisfied, and teachers are no exception. Failure to satisfy these needs may lead to a negative attitude towards duty and frustrations. The investigator offers the following recommendations.

• Teachers should be appreciated and motivated in their duties to enhance job performance and survival of learning institutions.
• Organizations should adopt a proper appraisal system for feedback on employee performance.
• New perspective job dissatisfaction and other motivational variables should be included in future studies.

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