Impact of Reward and Recognition on Job Satisfaction

The definition of job satisfaction is the contentment of a person on his/her job role and bestowed responsibilities (Deeprose, 2007). Past time, a person’s job was an inheritance from the father and people must determine their future with the inherited job even they satisfied or not (Deeprose, 2007). In the current context, with the evolvement of the needs of the people, there are factors which can affect on job satisfaction (Kabir, 2011).

·         The level of pay and benefits

·         Quality of working conditions

·         Leadership and social relationship

·         Job itself

·         Recognition

·         Career path development with experience

The happier people are within their job, the more satisfied they are said to be. Job satisfaction is not the same as motivation, although it is clearly linked. Job design aims to enhance job satisfaction and performance methods include job rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment (Kabir, 2011).

Rewards and recognitions

According to Danish (2010), Human resource management is a key function of an organization as whole organization is equal to its Human resources. HR is the core value of any organization and primary source of the productivity gaining. So, the organizations treat their employees as the capital. Rewards and recognition is a way of paying gratitude towards the employees which allowing them to feel that they have done a good job. Naturally, people like being recognized by others desire for appreciation (Cumming, et al., 2004).

The rewards can be non-financial rewards as well as financial rewards for the employee. Some organizations provide bonus, free vacations, free fitness academy memberships, entertainment allowances, Company maintained car, or any other material objects. These are called financial rewarding which can satisfy the employees (United States. Department of Veterans Affairs, United States. Veterans Health Administration, 1997).

Non-financial rewards are intangible but emotionally can satisfy the employee. Career advancement opportunity, empowering with responsibilities, job security, more opportunities to participate are namely few non-financial rewards (Ventrice, 2009).

Recognition is another different level of employee satisfaction and many organizations practice recognition in ways such as Employee of the Year award, Customer Service Awards, Years of Service, first day at work, Sales Award, Retirement Award, Innovation Awards etc (Ventrice, 2009).

Job satisfaction measurement tools

Surveying is the commonly and worldwide using best tool to measure the job satisfaction. In measuring satisfaction with the three types (pay, benefits and recognition), scale of 1-7 is given and employees can rate on each scale (Tessema, et al., 2013).

At PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the big four audit giants in the world, it is measuring the job satisfaction annually with a survey called “Global People Survey”. The survey reaches each employee globally with a unique access individually in a database. The questionnaire contains yes/no questions as well as scaled questions such as, Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, strongly disagree to tick off. Also explanations questions where the employee can suggest changes and his/her ideas. The result will be issued globally with anonymous responds in a report with bar charts and pie charts.

The overall object of rewarding is to support the attainment of the organization's strategic and shorter-term objectives by helping to ensure that it has the skilled competent, committed and well-motivated workforce it needs. This means providing for the continuing improvement of individual, team and therefore organizational performance, and taking steps that contribute to the creation of added value and the achievement of competitive advantage (Armstrong, 2002).

Figure 1.0: Areas influencing Pay

Source: (Armstrong, 2002)

The figure 1 shows how external factors behavior with the pay (Armstrong, 2002). Inputs are based on the skills and knowledge of the individuals and they effectively use their competencies to contribute. Output cage shows the target achievement and meeting the performance measures. Contribution can be identified as the objective of the organization which achieve by the employees with their available skills and competencies. Internal relativities explain the comparison between other employee’s jobs with the individual employee based on the competencies and skills gained (Armstrong, 2002). External relativities based on the outside organization market where the employee receive a recognition for their skills and competencies. Potential is the long run results of pay which will show that the employee has full potential if he works for the company and his pay will show the future existence within the organization (Armstrong, 2002).

References

Armstrong, M., 2006. A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. illustrated ed. s.l.:Kogan Page Publishers.

Cumming, S., Houck, T., Moore, B. S. & panszczyk, L., 2004. HR Networking: Retention. Chicago: CCH Incorporated.

Danish, R. Q., 2010. Impact of Reward and Recognition on Job Satisfaction and. International Journal of Business Management, 5(2), p. 9.

Deeprose, D., 2007. How to Recognize & Reward Employees: 150 Ways to Inspire Peak Performance. 2, Revised ed. s.l.:AMACOM.

Kabir, M. M. N., 2011. FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEE JOB SATISFACTION OF PHARMACEUTICAL SECTOR. Australian Journal of Business and Management Research, Vol.1 (No.9), pp. [113-123].

Tessema, M. T., Embaye, A. & Ready, K., 2013. The Effects of Employee Recognition, Pay and Benefits on Job Satisfaction. Journal of Business and Economics, 4(1), pp. 1-12.

United States. Department of Veterans Affairs, United States. Veterans Health Administration, 1997. Journey of Change. 2 ed. USA: Department of Veterans Affairs.

Ventrice, C., 2009. Make Their Day!: Employee Recognition that Works : Proven Ways to Boost Morale, Productivity, and Profits. 2 ed. USA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.