Report: The Impact of Employee Performance on Job Satisfaction

This report investigates the relationship between employee performance and job satisfaction, highlighting its importance in organizational behavior. It explores the impact of employee performance on job satisfaction. The report delves into the importance of the research, objectives, literature review, and research methodology, including the use of a positivism paradigm and a quantitative approach. It also covers data collection and analysis, ethical considerations, and a project plan. The literature review examines employee performance dimensions, performance evaluation, individual task proficiency, and the connection between job performance and satisfaction. Key concepts such as motivators, hygiene factors, and job satisfaction elements are also discussed. The report's objectives include examining the impact of performance elements, motivators, and hygiene factors on job satisfaction, and analyzing task proficiency and performance evaluation. The report concludes by emphasizing the significance of this relationship for organizations seeking to attract and retain skilled employees and foster a positive work environment.

The impact of employee performance on job satisfaction
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Executive summary
This report concerns with the impact of employee performance on job satisfaction. It highlights
the importance of the phenomenon of investigation and supports the analysis with relevant
theories and approaches. The importance of the research is declared, the relevant literature
review, the proposed research methodology, population, research sample, the methods of data
collection and analysis, the ethical issues concerning the social research and the project
timeframe are also discussed.

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Table of contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................4
1.Importance of the research………………………....................................................................5
2.Research objectives………………………….............................................................................5
2.1 General objective...................................................................................................................5
2.2 Specific objectives.................................................................................................................5
3.The literature review……………………………......................................................................6
3.1 Employee performance..........................................................................................................6
3.1.1 Performance evaluation.......................................................................................................7
3.1.2 Individual task proficiency..................................................................................................7
3.1.3 Job performance and level of job satisfaction.....................................................................8
3.2 Job satisfaction.......................................................................................................................9
3.2.1 Factors affecting job satisfaction........................................................................................9
3.2.2 Approaches to job satisfaction..........................................................................................10
3.2.3 Job satisfaction as a function of job features....................................................................10
3.2.4 Job satisfaction elements...................................................................................................11
4.Research Methodology……………………….........................................................................12
4.1 Research philosophy............................................................................................................12
4.2 The methodological approach..............................................................................................12
4.3 Data collection method........................................................................................................13
4.4 Data analysis techniques:.....................................................................................................14
4.5 Ethical issues........................................................................................................................14
5.Project plan………………………….......................................................................................16
Conclusions...................................................................................................................................17
References.....................................................................................................................................19

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Introduction
Organizations that seek high standards of employees' performance should become a source of
satisfaction for their employees. Motivation and job satisfaction are related to employee
performance level and success at workplace, as they could be influenced in a positive or negative
way. When the intrinsic motivation is high, employees can enjoy working and devoting more
time and effort in fulfilling the required work and improving their job performance (Rusu &
Avasilcai 2013).
The workforce production level is very important to profit-oriented organizations that is why the
job performance became the main focus of organizational behavior research. According to Landy
(1989), as cited in Ajzen (2011), the relationship between the employee performance and job
satisfaction is of high importance that is why researchers call it the called Holy Grail of the
organizational behavior. Over the time, various measures were developed to assess employee
performance and job satisfaction. Organizations have to predict the employees' performance over
a period of time to recognize the anticipated changes in performance. Also, motivational factors
should be considered and utilized to increase the employees' performance and their level of
satisfaction (Timar 2015).
The following sections shed light on the importance of the research, the research objectives, the
literature review, the research methodology, the layout of the population and sample, data
collection and analysis method, ethical issues and the search project plan.

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1. Importance of the research
Employee performance and job satisfaction has a long and controversial history as two linked
concepts. From an organizational perspective, it is very important to assure that the right
employees with the highest skills and talents are attracted and retained. Organizations also
concern with maintaining the best performance of the workforce, through employee engagement
and motivation. Organizations have to provide a good workplace that increases the employee
performance and influences the level of job satisfaction. It has been proven in research that job
satisfaction reduces the level of turnover for good employees. Employee satisfaction reveals the
extent of employee content and acceptance to his job role (Odembo 2013).
From a personal perspective, job performance reflects the extent to which the employee does his
job well or not. It reflects the way the employee performs the required tasks. Investigating the
relationship between the employee performance and the job satisfaction is very important as it
reveals the different factors that affect the employee performance mainly the workplace
conditions and its relation to the level of satisfaction. The environment of the workplace
represents the physical location where the employee does his daily activities and tasks (javed
2014).
2. Research objectives
2.1 General objective
To examine the relationship between employee performance and job satisfaction.

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2.2 Specific objectives
 To investigate the impact of the performance elements on the job satisfaction.
 To examine the relation between the motivators and the hygiene factors on the job
satisfaction level.
 To investigate the elements of job satisfaction and the theoretical foundation and
approaches.
 To analyze the task proficiency and performance evaluation.
3. The literature review
3.1 Employee performance
The employee can view the job performance as a result of a series of behaviors. As the tasks he
performs daily directly contribute to the job performance. The influential model developed by
Campbell (1993), as cited in Berghe (2011), describes eight dimensions of job performance as
follows:
 The job-specific task proficiency, including the employee behavior in relation to the core
tasks of the job.
 Non-job-specific proficiency of doing work in general and independently of the main
individual tasks.
 Communication either written or oral with people inside or outside the work place, in
other works the communication network.
 The employee level of commitment to the core tasks that shows the efforts demonstrated.

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 Ensuring that the personal discipline is maintained.
 Facilitating others performance, including peers and teams.
 Leadership style and its impact on the individual performance of the employees
 Management skills and its ability to enhance the employees performance
3.1.1 Performance evaluation
Performance evaluation is done by managers to analyze and assess the results of every employee
and he achieved successes in fulfilling their tasks within a particular period of time. It is the
process that controls the efficiency and the level of production capacity of employees.
Employees' personal qualities and talents, their willingness to work and the work environment
determine their success in the organization. Performance evaluation has two main goals, first, to
judge by the current performance quality through assessing the employee's degree of success.
Second, to select the calibers that could be placed in the top management according to their
performance and skills. Accordingly, performance evaluation is very important to enable
employees to improve their performance and to select the best-talented people as managers
(Vural, et al., 2012).
3.1.2 Individual task proficiency
It refers to the employee behaviors that can be formalized at work in relation to his ability to
complete his tasks and are not related in a social context. These behaviors measure the degree of
matching between the employee and the requirements and expectations his individual role. The
individual task proficiency and the concept of 'task performance' are closely related. Task
performance is considered the most important factor in Johnson model, 2003. Citizenship

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performance corresponds citizenship constructs, namely “helping behavior” and “personal
support”, these concepts have a voluntary nature of these behaviors and they are not related to
the change-oriented actions of the proactive behavior. The adaptive performance does not
differentiate between the organizational role and the individual and team role. Although,
employees have to adapt to the changes that occur at the organizational level which represent the
majority of changes that happen, for example, the decisions of business process re-engineering.
According to Johnson model (2003), as cited in Vural, et al. (2012), elements of individual task
proficiency are as follows:
1. Task performance: Including the job-specific and non-job-specific proficiency of doing
tasks, the proficiency of both written and oral communication, management and
supervision.
2. Citizenship performance: Including individual initiative, individual and organizational
willingness to support others.
3. An adaptive individual performance that reflects the ability of dealing with risk and
uncertainty.
3.1.3 Job performance and level of job satisfaction
The studies reveal that employee performance is positively linked to job satisfaction.
Organizations desire to recruit and retain trained, talented and highly skilled employees. The
higher performance employee desires attractive package from the workplace and the employer
has to respond to this desire in order to retain the highly skilled employee. This leads us to an
important issue that the employee commitment is adversely affected by the low level of

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satisfaction which negatively affects the organizational performance and its ability to fulfill its
desired goals (javed 2014).
3.2 Job satisfaction
Employee job satisfaction is linked to how people feel, think and recognize their jobs. Job
satisfaction is about employees' general emotions towards the different elements of their job and
workplace, and the degree to which employees like what they do. Job satisfaction is related to
behavior, motives and proceeds, it is considered a measurement of the employee's intention
towards their workplace (javed 2014).
3.2.1 Factors affecting job satisfaction
To realize the real factors that satisfy people towards their workplace is a multi-faceted issue.
These factors could be positive or negative, and employees could be satisfied with a group of
factors and dissatisfied with others. Researchers as Robbins (2001), as cited in Odembo (2013),
argue that the working conditions could influence the job satisfaction, as the physical work
environment including hygiene, temperature, noise, working hours and access to resources. The
poor working conditions are expected to affect the level of employees' satisfaction level. Also the
level of pay influences the level of satisfaction, but it is not the only factor that controls the level
of job satisfaction, according to Oshagbemi (2000), as cited in Odembo (2013), a significant
relationship does exist between the pay and rank and the level of employees' job satisfaction.
Despite pay, both of recognition and financial reward are found by researchers to significantly
affect the knowledge worker job satisfaction level. Recognition and remuneration create value
for the employees at the workplace that is why their level of job satisfaction increases.

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3.2.2 Approaches to job satisfaction
There are three different approaches that describe and measure the employees' job satisfaction, as
follows:
 The first approach is the information processing model, it is concerned with the
characteristics of the job. The model assumes that employees collect information about
the organization, the job and the workplace and their cognitive assessment controls the
satisfaction level.
 The second approach assumes that the social information, as a consequence of past
behavior is the source of measurement of the job satisfaction level in workplace. It means
that the level of job satisfaction of the employee is determined by the evaluation of other
employees at work.
 The third approach relates the level of job satisfaction with the employee perspective and
personality.
3.2.3 Job satisfaction as a function of job features
Frederick Herzberg (1959), as cited in Berghe (2011), in the two-factor theory assumes that two
factors affect the overall job satisfaction level, they are the motivators and the hygiene factors.
Moreover, it assumes that the motivators are responsible for increasing the job satisfaction level,
but the absence of the hygiene factors can result in job dissatisfaction at the workplace. The
hygiene factors include the salary, working conditions and safety. Herzberg assumes that the
motivation stems from the job itself and managers are responsible for the job nature they ask the

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employees to do. Accordingly, good job leads to better employee performance and increased job
satisfaction level.
3.2.4 Job satisfaction elements
The job satisfaction model consists of a group of elements, according to Shrm (2009), they are as
follows:
 The organizational commitment to employee professional development.
 Offering career advancement opportunities.
 Availability of career development opportunities to enable employees to learn and gain
professional growth.
 Availability of job-specific training.
 Opportunities offered to employees to communicate with others to assist in their career
advancement.
 Opportunities to use the skills of employees at workplace.
 Offering training and tuition reimbursement of self-development programs.
 The degree of communication between employees and supervisors.
 The delegation of authority and decision making.
 Direct supervisor relationship with employees.
 The pay rate and reward system.
 Other advantages, including health care, life insurance for dependents, paid time off,
retirement benefits.
 Work life balance.

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4. Research Methodology
4.1 Research philosophy
This research follows the positivism paradigm as the philosophical paradigm, the researcher is
assumed to behave in a passive way and keeps neutral (Keele 2012). This research philosophy is
related to the natural science philosophy that ensures unambiguity and accounts for the delivery
of accurate knowledge (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill 2009). As the cultural values, aspects and
beliefs should not affect the research to ensure objectivity (Schlegel 2015).
4.2 The methodological approach
The quantitative approach is to be used in this research to provide a clear definition of the
questions examining the relationship between the events (Greasley 2008). According to Dssa &
Arends 2012, it tests the relationship between the dependent and the independent variables. Data
is often gathered by using structured questionnaires that could be analyzed with the suitable
statistical tools, the results could be generalized to the population. Accordingly, the quantitative
method is a involves empirical research in a scientific way to provide the reality of the
researched phenomenon. It depends on the research main assumption and the results are
interpreted according to the perspective of the research and the researcher level of knowledge
(Qambar 2015).
There are methods to be used in the quantitative analysis to calculate the variables under
investigation and draw conclusions. Tools of data collection include structured interviews or
questionnaires that could be self-administrated in oral or written format. Large sample size
ensures the delivery of accurate results. The results are represented in visualized graphs and

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tables to support the findings. Accordingly, the quantitative approach familiarizes the researcher
with the concepts used in the research and results could be generated through hypotheses testing
(Qambar 2015). This research will use the questionnaire as the most useful technique to collect
the research data.
The questionnaires would be self-administrated, they will be distributed to the respondents and
collected after they are filled with the respondents' opinions. The survey will done in selected
large corporations in the USA and the researcher assemble groups of employees to fill the
questionnaires at their workplace.
4.3 Data collection method
Data represents facts collected by the researcher to be analyzed by using various techniques. A
survey is a tool that takes place in the research setting to test the hypotheses. It is used by the
researcher to describe the targeted population characteristic or several characteristics (Paradis et
al. 2016; Norris et al. 2015). Data will be collected from large corporations to measure the
impact of the employee performance on job satisfaction.

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 Questionnaire technique: self-administrated or written questionnaire is used for data
collection. Some factors should be assured by the researcher before distributing the
questionnaire to the respondents, including the precise list of information sources, the
relevance of the questions to the problem, ensure that each question is assigned to
measure one element, ensure the objectivity of the questions and questions are clear and
flow logically (Iro, 2013).
There are two main types of questionnaires used for data collection, first, the open-ended
questionnaire, which provides the chance to the respondents to write and express their
opinions and second, the close-ended questionnaire, which provides certain choices and
allows the respondent to select the most suitable answer (Zohrabi 2013). The designed
questionnaire will be close-ended, it will consider the 2 variables of the employee
performance and job satisfaction. The measuring scale will be the LIKERT scale that
reflects one to five point scale that ranges from strongly disagree to strongly agree
(Office of planning, assessment, research, and quality 2015).
 Sample: The random sampling method will be applied (Osorio 2014). It will consider
employees in a sample of large corporations within the USA, employee is the sample
unit.
4.4 Data analysis techniques:
The researcher has to choose among different analysis techniques to be applied to the problem.
Before analysis takes place, data should be prepared. Testing data quality is very important as it
affects data validity, the researcher has to treat the missing values and the extreme values

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(Kandel et al. 2012). Data errors should be eliminated to ensure its reliability and validity before
the analysis takes place. The simple regression analysis is a bivariate dependence technique, it
will be used in data analysis to estimate the relationship between the research variables
(Namestnikova 2011).
4.5 Ethical issues
Social research should assure trust in in the research outcomes. It is important for researchers to
apply the basic ethical principles when conducting their research to ensure the safety and
generalizability of the research. According to Houston, (2016), there are six principles of ethical
research, including benefits and rights maximization for both the individuals and the society, risk
reduction, informing the respondents with the research objectives, ensuring the integrity and
transparency of the research, definition of the important features of the research including
accountability, responsibility, ensuring independence and objectivity of the research.

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Plan
Duration Actual Start
ACTIVITY Week
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Designing the questionnaire:
A close-ended questionnaire is to be
designed. Relevant questions should be
included to collect information about
employee performance and job
satisfaction in large corporations
1-2
Schedule time for distributing
questionnaires:
The employees at large corporations to
be asked about their opinions should be
listed, and the HR departments should
be contacted in official ways to arrange
for appropriate data collection timing.
The appointments should be confirmed.
3-4
Data collection and entry:
The population size is the determinant
of the sample size. The sample will
consider the large corporations in the
USA to ensure the maturity of the
organizations in the sample then to be
able to generalize the search results to
the society.
5-6
Data analysis:
After the researcher collects the filled
questionnaires from the respondents, the
appropriate statistical software should
be used to analyze data. The researcher
should treat the missing data and
conduct the reliability and validity tests
before data analysis to ensure the
accuracy of data. Then the regression
method is to be applied to analyze data.
7-8
Writing the data analysis report: 9-10

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Plan
Duration Actual Start
ACTIVITY Week
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
The data analysis results should be
documented in the report and the
recommendations should be written in
the light of the research results.
5. Project plan
Conclusions
Organizations concern with maintaining the best performance of the workforce, through
employee engagement and motivation. They have to provide a good workplace that increases the
employee performance and influences the level of job satisfaction. From a personal perspective,
job performance reflects the extent to which the employee does his job well or not. It reflects the
way the employee performs the required tasks.
Performance evaluation is done by managers to analyze and assess the results and successes
achieved by every employee in fulfilling their tasks within a particular period of time. Job
satisfaction is related to behavior, motives and proceeds, it is considered a measurement of the
employee's intention towards their workplace. Studies reveal that employee performance is
positively linked to job satisfaction. The organizational success is a function of the performance
of its workforce. Accordingly, if the employee level of job satisfaction increases, he could show
better performance.

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This research follows the positivism paradigm as the philosophical paradigm, the researcher is
assumed to behave in a passive way and keeps neutral. The quantitative approach is to be used in
this research to provide a clear definition of the questions examining the relationship between the
events. This research will use the questionnaire as the most useful technique to collect the
research data. It will be close-ended and will consider the 2 variables of the employee
performance and job satisfaction. Data collection will be self-administrated, as questionnaires be
distributed to the respondents and collected after they are filled with the respondents' opinions.
The survey will be done in selected large corporations in the USA and employees will fill the
questionnaires at the workplace.

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