Reflective Essay on Job Dissatisfaction and Motivation Theories

This reflective essay explores job dissatisfaction and various motivation theories, including Hierarchy of Needs, Motivator-Hygiene Theory, and Job Characteristics Model. The author reflects on their experiences as an administrator at Mercy Place East Melbourne and discusses the factors that led to their job dissatisfaction. The essay emphasizes the importance of job satisfaction in the workplace and how it can be influenced by different motivational factors.

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Reflective Essay
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Introduction
The following is a reflection of my job dissatisfaction as an administrator at Mercy Place
East Melbourne. This reflection paper covers job satisfaction concepts along with various
motivation theories: Hierarchy of Needs job satisfaction, Job Characteristics Model, and
Motivator-Hygiene Theory. The reflection also takes into account my experiences along with the
motivational factors in the various theories that led to my dissatisfaction.
After graduating with a degree in Community and Social Work, I was got a chance at
Mercy Place East Melbourne that majored on caring of people with different disability and
diseases. For the first year, I had a rough time dealing with both the clients and staffs that were in
the Homecare. The experiences led to my job dissatisfaction in my career. Job satisfaction
concept has different views. Jodlbauer, Selenko, Batinic & Stiglbauer, (2011) viewed job
satisfaction as a feeling that produced positive or negative effect towards the assigned
responsibilities. Wnuk, (2017, p.32) defines job satisfaction as an attitude developed towards a
particular job and perception of job fitness. Wnuk expressed that some factors such as salary,
working environment and motivation affects the level of liking or disliking the job. There are
numerous factors in an organization that causes job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction.
Among the factors are appropriate rewards such good salary, supportive working
conditions from both the boss and colleagues well as instrument, compatibility between
employee and the assigned task, other motivational aspects such as promotion and
recognition( Persaud, 2018,p.5). Job satisfactions have great importance in the workplace. From
the survey conducted in the United States that many 84 % of satisfied employees indicated that
they would not think of quitting the job, thus helps the organizations to reduce employee

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turnover as well as retain the best employees. Most of the satisfied employees identified
promotion, salary increment, reward, good working conditions as the best contributors to job
satisfaction.
From the survey, 54% of the unsatisfied employees indicated that they would leave the
job in case of any new opportunity (Hur, 2019). The employees indicated that poor working
relations, small salary and failure of employee motivation as the major contributors of the
dissatisfaction. While 48% of the dissatisfied employees indicated that they would not reapply
for the same position if given an opportunity again. Therefore, job satisfaction concept thus
focuses on the happiness of an employee.
Reflecting upon my internship experience, I would say that the major cause of job
satisfaction was the organizational structure, employee structure and compositions as well as
lack of coherent among the stakeholders. As an administrator, I was responsible for ensuring
that facility activities run smoothly according to day-day activities schedule. However this was
always difficult as a result of the following: First, the director was not well versed with the
relevant information required in ensuring quality services to the old people. The director was the
son of the founder of the institution, thus assumed the role after the death of the father. The
inadequacy of the knowledge made the direct to object numerous suggestion that I would put
forward in ensuring that the facility operates in a more sustainable strategy while acquiring
reasonable revenue. In most cases, I would work with little budget thus made some of the core
activities such as providing nutritious meals to the clients to be a difficult thing. The results were
always deteriorating the health of the clients; these led to the loss of loyalty among some clients
who withdrew their families from the facility, translating into loss to the facility.

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Alessandri, Borgogni and Latham, (2016) identified top-management relationship as
key significant in job satisfaction of employees. Employers can demonstrate interest and concern
about the employees as well as the ability to provide emotional and technical support to
employee to achieve the objectives effectively. Birkenmeier and Sanséau, (2015,p.16`) also
denote that supervisors are significant in the induction phase since they are responsible for the
new employee adaptability to the new endearment. Director’s roles include: nurturing of new
employees’ feelings, beliefs and attitudes toward the new roles thus leading to maximum
satisfaction.
The second contributor was the poor employee relation policies that were available. Most
of the employees did not have academic qualifications that were significant for the old care.
Some of the employees were directors’ relatives, and family members thus resulted in inadequate
skills as well as poor employee relations policies. These made daily operations of the facility to
be difficult as many employees were assigned tasks that they could not complete satisfaction;y
thus led to poor performance. My attempt in changing the employee composition was not easy,
as the director took the overall role of recruiting and firing.
Employees’ poor performance resulted from wrong task allocation, and this was
translated into my experience too. (Rhodes & Fletcher, 2013, p.49) State job satisfaction is
determined by the type of task or job assigned. Factors that influence job satisfaction focus on
how the assigned task is structured to either create increase, learning opportunities and
acceptability of the responsibility (Hans, 2019). The role of drafting safe work policies was a
good opportunity to learn more in the human resource departments especially on employee
relation policies. However, the role should be on the Human Resource manager, and even a

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junior staff is supposed to it, then that is supposed to take place under guidance. Director’s
inadequate knowledge of employee relation policies was an aspect of being incompetent. During
the three months, I was psychologically, socially and physiologically tortured as my director was
not ready to understand the concept of the poor performance of the facilities employees.
More importantly, my effort to draft a good employee relation policies were met with
resignation threats from my director, and I did not wait for the time to come, as forwarding my
resignation letter. As an administrator, I thought and believed that having good employee
relation policies would ensure all the basic needs of the subordinate staff that will enhance
service delivery to the old age. In most cases, my director would assign other roles that supposed
to be done with junior staff, and when I delegate those duties, he will term me as “Lazy lad,”
“Good for nothing graduate.” Inform of subordinate staffs. These terms would demoralize me
and even fail to complete easy tasks since my satisfaction and experience in the company would
determine day in day out; with low self-esteemed, I was unable to enjoy my duties. Spie, (2013)
states that job satisfaction is only achieved only when a director as the boss is perceived to be
fair, competent, helpful, emotional provider and effective communicator by an employee.
During the first year, I came into real reality with the importance of job satisfaction and
the role of job satisfaction theories in the workplace. In my classwork, I learned different job
satisfaction theories, and these include the Hierarchy of Needs theory, Motivator-Hygiene
Theory, Job Characteristics Model and Dispositional Approach. In this reflection part, I
elaborate on three theories that were relevant to my job dissatisfaction at Mercy Place East
Melbourne.

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Hierarchy of Needs job satisfaction theory entails human needs that are in the five-level
hierarchy that are grouped into two: deficiency needs and growth needs (Kalva & Shiryayev,
2016). The constituents of the two categories are physiological needs, safety,
belongingness/love, esteem, and self-actualization.
Applying Hierarchy of Needs job satisfaction theory in workplace, manager and Director
are responsible for fulfilling all the defiance and needs of employees to attain the desired
satisfaction. According to the theory, some things need to be met for an employee to be satisfied
in the workplace. In this theory, safety is a physiological need that exists when an employee feels
safe in the work environment thus making one to feel like one of the organization.
Safety is achievable with a positive relationship between the employee and the bosses.
Reflecting upon my intern period, safety was one factor that led to my job dissatisfaction, since I
had a bad relationship with my director who assigned me roles that I could not complete.
Socially the director was not friendly and kept on diminishing my efforts even among the
colleagues. This made some colleagues to follow the suit of emotionally attacking me thus
affected the level of my acceptance among the team. I lost the sense of belonging and most of the
free time I would sit alone and contemplate of quitting the internship. The director made me feel
unappreciated by calling me different unwanted names among my colleagues lowered my self –
esteem among my colleagues. I would have gained my self-esteem if the director had taken upon
his responsibility to offer me training and guidance as well as motivate me in all my obstacles.
From the theory and job experience, it is evidential that any organization that wants to
focus on job satisfaction among the employees needs to attain the basic needs in the hierarchal

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model. Lastly, I was not able to attain my self-actualization during the intern period as a result of
little support in achieving myself-fulfilment from my supervisor.
Figure 1: Shows Hierarchy of Needs job satisfaction theory obtained from (Kalva,
Shiryayev, 2016).
The second theory is Motivator-Hygiene Theory that was developed by Herzberg.
According to the theory, both job distinction and dissatisfaction are separate and on some
occasions have unrelated concepts (Tesavrita & Suryadi, 2012, p.301). In theory, motivators are
perceived as things like benefits and pay, recognition of achievement and reward on the same.
These needs are instrumental in ensuring employee’s job satisfaction. On the other hand, hygiene
is determined by various factors such as job structure, interaction with superiors and colleagues,
management style exhibited. Integrating both the Motivator-Hygiene Theory with my job
reflection, it is evidential that during my intern there were little motivational aspects.

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According to true motivation is dependent on achievement and development as well as
recognition (Mahzan & Abidin, 2015). The motivators have a direct influence on one's attitudes
after that leading to job satisfaction. The motivating factors are found within the assigned task;
for example when the task requirements are easy, then the employee gets motivated to do it and
complete it more effectively than when the task is mental and physical intensive. On the other
hand, the hygiene factors always cause employees to lee harder since they are not always found
within the task but the environments of the task (Kalva & Shiryayev, 2016,p.31). These hygiene
factors include company policies should be fair to all employees irrespective of the position;
management and supervision style that must be fair and appropriate and considerate;
management and employee relationship to eradicate bullying, cliques and enhance healthy
existence; remuneration and salary should be fair, reasonable and competitive with other
organizations(Sell & Cleal, 2011).
Relating the theory with my job experience during the intern, there was no single
motivator. My director failed to recognize any efforts that I did in trying to complete the
assignment even though I had no ideas. Instead, the director lowered my moral by calling a lazy
pal. Additionally, the hygiene factor that led to job dissatisfaction is the poor relationship that
existed between my supervisors and me. The negative relationship hindered me from asking any
assistance from the director due to fear of intimidation. Moreover, the poor relationship also
spread to other colleagues thus leading to mare conflicts with my colleagues. In most cases, I
was perceived as a trouble maker, whereas I was always defending myself from being bulled.

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Figure 2: Shows Motivator-Hygiene job satisfaction Theory, obtained from (Tesavrita &
Suryadi, 2012).
Job –characteristics Model states that job satisfaction is achievable when the environment
provides intrinsically motivating factors. These factors are varied and entail skill variety: Task
identity, task feedback, and task significance (Wimak, 2016, p.15). The job skills, task
significance, and task identity are psychological influencer thus help employees to great
meaningful work. While the autonomy makes the employee possess some responsibility to the
given task, thus have control on many things thus leading to job satisfaction (Ziegler, Hagen &
Diehl, 2012). Applying the theory with my intern period, I would say that the task that was
assigned to me entailed policy drafting. The task was beyond my comprehension thus led to my
dissatisfaction.
Conclusion

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 10
Job satisfaction has a great impact on employee performance and the achievement or the
entire organization. The current importance of job satisfaction has led to several concepts and
theories. In my reflection on job dissatisfaction at MPEM, the above theories are useful in
explaining the cause of the low level of job dissatisfaction. The discussed theories tend to be
general thus focusing on them provides frequency rather than the intensity of the cause of job
dissatisfaction. The theories are useful to all managers in creating a work environment that
enhances job satisfaction among the stakeholders.
Reflecting on the Hierarchical model and the intern experience, my job- dissatisfaction
resulted from the lack of safety, high level of demoralization and loss of self- esteem. These
factors are also captured by the Motivator-Hygiene Theory, whereby my director lacked the
motivational aspects, while at the same time created an unfit working environment. Lastly, my
job dissatisfaction is also identified by the Characteristic Job Model, specifically on the task
identity and structure. The task that I was assigned required some knowledge and skills that I did
not possess, thus distributed my mental status leading to a high level of dissatisfaction.
List of References

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Alessandri, G., Borgogni, L. and Latham, G. (2016). A Dynamic Model of the Longitudinal
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