School Social Workers & Job Satisfaction

Vecchio (1991) states that one's thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and action tendencies toward his/her job can be characterized as one's job satisfaction. He goes on to note that job satisfaction has been an important variables for study for three basic reasons: (1) Workers' physical and mental well-being is correlated with their degree of job satisfaction such that the greater the satisfaction levels, the better the physical and mental health records; (2) Job satisfaction is central to an organization's ability to attract and retain qualified workers; and (3) Low levels of job satisfaction have been found to be related to a number of organizational problems and difficulties including turnover, absenteeism, filing of grievances and union-organizing activities.

Over the years, there has been a good deal of theory as well as research conducted on factors that influence levels of job satisfaction. For example, Eisikovits, Meier, Guttmann, and Shurka (1985) measured job satisfaction and social work supervision in public welfare agencies in Israel with 63 workers receiving professional supervision.

Supervisory variables such as the worker's professional development and the supervisor's administrative skills were positively correlated with both the work environment and job satisfaction. Supervisors' unrealistic expectations of the

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e that social workers have moderate to good levels of job satisfaction. However, there are a number of personal, background, and demographic factors that can influence the extent to which a social worker experiences job satisfaction. Factors Contributive to Job Satisfaction Among Social Workers What job factors contribute to the job satisfaction levels of social workers? According to several researchers (e.g. Barker, 1982; Jayaratne and associates, 1983, 1991; Meisels, 1962), determining an answer to this question is important given: (1) ongoing shortages and high levels of stress, burnout, and turnover in the field; and (2) the fact that stress, burnout, and turnover have been associated with job satisfaction levels. This section of the review examines studies exploring for relationships between job satisfaction and various job factors. Supervisory Style Among both regular workers and social workers, supervisory style appears to be a major factor affecting job satisfaction levels. In one study of job satisfaction and supervisory style, Cherniss (1980) observed a large variety of professionals. It was found that regardless of their occupation, professionals with the highest levels of job dissatisfaction and burnout were
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Approximate Word count = 9657
Approximate Pages = 39 (250 words per page)

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