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Defining Job Satisfaction
Defining Job Satisfaction
Defining Job Satisfaction
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Job satisfaction is defined as, “a positive feeling about a job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics” (Robbins and Judge, 2009, p.83). The police department where I am employed has an extremely high turnover rate. Officers, when they are hired with no certifications, are required to sign a two year contract. Any department who hires an officer under contract to another agency must pay for that officer’s training if they have not fulfilled their obligation to the original department. In my experience with this agency, several officers have left during their two year contract time to go to other departments; however, most will work for two years and then go to another agency, leaving this department with little experience on patrol. Officers leave for a variety of reasons.
REASONS FOR JOB DISSATISFACTION
The biggest reasons officers are leaving is job dissatisfaction. Officers claim that the pay is too low for the economy of the area; although many of these individuals are attempting to support families on $26,000 per year, which would be fine for a single individual but not for a family. The morale of the agency is very low with little to no interaction between employees during off-time and no competition between shifts or divisions. Community satisfaction with the police department is
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Poor pay is not always an indicator of job dissatisfaction, yet our text does state that it can be a factor for those making $40,000 or less per year (p.85). As a 15 year veteran of the agency I am currently having to work two or three jobs in order to support my family. “According to one survey, 89 percent of managers said they believe that employees leave and stay mostly for the money….yet actually 80 to 90 percent of employees leave for reasons related NOT to money, but to the job, the manager, the culture, or the work environment” (Branham, 2005, p.
Chapter 10 was a good read, the role organizational structure plays within an organization of all sizes is very important. The stories and organizational charts used in this chapter was interesting and informative. I like how the author used the organizational structure for U.S. Metropolitan Police Department, Washington D.C. to show readers the importance of organizational structure when it comes to following commands within a major organization that deals with homeland security. Following, September 11, 2011 terrorist attack, homeland security and MPD was forced to make changes in the organizational structural. Because the order of communication between the national security and the police department wasn’t communicated inefficiently between
Police corruption, misconduct, and brutality in the United States have been issues since the creation of watch system in the United States (Grant& Terry, 2012). New policy and training is now in place and the corruption, misconduct, and brutality has gone down since the beginning of policing. This is a huge issue that impacts all police organizations in the United States. The extent of police corruption, misconduct, and brutality is hard to track in the United States. A lot of these crimes go unreported, tossed aside, or the officer responsible gets little or no punishment. This is huge issue in the United States criminal justice system.
Within our police system in America, there are gaps and loopholes that give leeway to police officials who either abuse the authority given to them or do not represent the ethical standards that they are expected to live up to by society. Because of the nature of police work, there is a potential for deterioration of these ethical and moral standards through deviance, misconduct, corruption, and favoritism. Although these standards are set in place, many police officers are not held accountable for their actions and can easily get by with the mistreatment of others because of their career title. While not every police abuses his or her power, the increasingly large percentage that do present a problem that must be recognized by the public as well as those in charge of police departments throughout our country. Police officials are abusing their power and authority through three types of misconduct known as malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance and these types are being overlooked by management personnel who rarely intervene even though they know what is happening. Misconduct is wrong because it violates rights and causes people to be wrongly accused of crimes or be found not guilty and set free when they are still an endangerment to other people. The public needs to be educated on what is happening in the police system in hopes that someone will speak out to protect citizens from being violated by police officers.
Criminal justice employees are also unmotivated because out of all the hard work they do, there is little reward for it. Due to limited resources, pay raises have decreased, time and half is now comp time, longevity has stopped, company Christmas parties are gone and the list goes on. It is hard enough for workers to feel motivated under these circumstances but it gets worst when they recognize their pay does not reflect their performance in comparison with co-workers whose jobs are alike (Stojkovic, Kalinich & Klofas, 2008). Now employees are told that they are just lucky enough to have a job. This statement is very true but it is hard to find many people who can perform well in this line of work so the employees need to be appreciated more, especially since the majority of the incentives are gone.
In many instances police officers bring the effects of the job homes with them. This form of stress affecting the police officer’s personal life can be seen in the officer overworking and over committing. The officer will bring the job home with him or her and neglect his or her spouse and the kids. This neglect of affection and communication that the officer has towards his/her spouse puts a lot of stress on the family. An officer that has truly been overcome with stress will neglect the family and in many cases start to neglect the other daily tasks of the house. (Miller, 2007) Another way that police stress can affect the officer’s personal life is through infidelity, lies and distrust. Police are generally required to work many of hours in their work week and this unfortunately can lead to infidelity, lies and distrust in the officer’s personal life. When the infidelity, lies and distrust happen in a relationship, this not only affects the relationship and stress of the family but also affects the stress that the officer then takes back in to work.(Miller,
Recruitment becomes a greater challenge in organizations with high turnover due to the increased number of vacancies. Nationwide, only 14% of employees feel satisfied with their jobs (Clawson & Haskins, 2011). This lack of satisfaction can...
The first step is to weed out the ones who just are not right to be a officer. The next step is to find the ones who fit the needs of the department. Medical and psychiatric testing, personal interview, and background information is used when identifying if a person is a good fit. There is research that has identified five personality characteristics that allows a police officer to excel in his or her job: extrovert, emotional stability, agreeable, conscientious, and open to experience. People also need to be aware of working in a high crime area. Even if the person has all five traits, but can’t handle the stress they may need to find another profession. There may be times new hires come from another department, but before hiring they need to talk to the previous employer. There may be certain reasons that the officer for hire is wanting to move to a different department. They could have been disciplined or terminated if they had not agreed to resign. This is not okay for the officers are not taking the consequences for their behavior.
Employee satisfaction, employee turnover, and workplace environment are inseparably linked. Workplace environments heavily influence employee satisfaction, which directly affects employee turnover rates. When employees feel they are not being supported within their first months of hire, they will inevitably leave the company. Employees want to have the security that if they need assistance, someone will be there to guide them. Therefore, it is imperative for organizations to develop a thorough onboarding program and a long-term retention plan.
The missions statement of police agencies usually highlight with pride the maintenance, promotion, and protection of peace, order, safety, and justified law enforcement in communities and the entire nation. Police officers are agents meant to bust crimes and get the bad guys. The police agency that the public use to lean on as the legitimate authority figure to come to the rescue however has created conflicting public perception. The misconduct of some police officers that include abuse of power and corruption tainted the good reputation of the agency overtime. The public trust on the agency has been broken and that has caused some members of the society to distrust and have doubts to service motives of police officers. The growing distrust to the police agencies is a common issue shared by countries worldwide. Police corruption is a costly international malady that also infected the police agencies in America.
In today’s society people file citizen complaints on anything and everything, whether it is worth the complaint or not. A citizen complaint is the action taken by a citizen to bring the attention to a police department so they can take action or inaction that the citizen considered to be contrary to law, proper procedure, good order, or in some manner prejudicial to the citizen, the Police Department, or to the country as a whole. Citizen complaints help the police make the community a safer place for everyone. Sadly, these days, a lot of citizen complaints are filed against police officers or departments. How many of those filed complaints are actually true.
It is well established reality that organisations in the world today can no longer survive without focusing on their employees. If they have to be at the competitive edge they have to invest in human resource, and placing their employees on top priority. This notion has lead to the strategies that, most organisations are pursuing through employee management. To achieve the optimum performance from employees organisations must motivate their employees, and have to engage them in activities that will benefit and help employees in achieving their predetermined goals and objectives. In order to achieve this, it is imperative for managers to set in motion work conditions that will help employees to achieve satisfaction of their job, low turnover and absenteeism rate and promoting the environment that promotes the organizational commitments and organizational citizenship behavior. Job satisfaction has been identified as a major requirement for organisations which aim to achieve excellence in their operations. Armstrong (2003) refers to job satisfaction as the attributes and feelings people have about their work. By extension, job satisfaction will mean positive or favourable attitudes towards one’s job whilst a negative or unfavourable attitude indicates job dissatisfaction.
Job satisfaction is a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences. It has been treated both as a general attitude and satisfaction with five specific dimensions of the job: pay, the work itself, promotion opportunities, supervision, and coworkers. Challenging work, valued rewards, opportunities for advancement, competent supervision, and supportive coworkers are dimensions of the job that can lead to satisfaction (Nelson & Quick, 2013, pg. 58-59).
Another reason may also come from an employee getting a good, decent salary. This not only improves the job satisfaction, but gives the member of staff an understanding of the fact that they get fair payment for their labors. “[But] if an employee does not get satisfaction in their work, they may seek satisfaction in other work unrelated areas. He or she may also be content with work as it relates to those work-related areas. Job dissatisfaction may also cause an employee to quit” (Robbins).
The majority of peace officers are committed to the profession they chose. They view the career as a calling, a dedication to perform a public service to their community. Being a police officer requires one to continually strive for perfection, but there is no such thing as a perfect cop. What makes a good cop turn bad? Many factors can attribute to police corruption, but the question that should be asked is if it can be stopped. Although police agencies have progressed greatly from its beginning, police corruption is the black mark that will forever leave a stain of embarrassment within an organization.
The problem of job dissatisfaction is a global workplace issue. Although Americans are happier in their jobs, satisfaction in the United States is declining due to downsizing and overburdening. (Robbins & Judge, 2009). Before outlining job dissatisfaction a definition of job satisfaction is needed. Job satisfaction is “[an] individuals’