Getting Through the Obstacle Course

The other night, I was watching a television show in which contestants have to pass through an obstacle course while competing for time against other contestants, all of whom are vying for a prize.  Ever feel like your workplace is designed on a similar model, where you have to dodge obstacles thrown at you by [...]

Person-Centered Messages, Supervisors, and Job Satisfaction

I just read a research article that discussed Person-Centered messages in the workplace (Fix & Sias, 2006). If you recall from my previous posts, person-centered messages describe those times when you decide what to say by accurately predicting how the listener will respond to your message and adapting accordingly. According to the article I read, [...]

Workplace Relationships and Job Satisfaction

I was talking with a former student the other day who told me that he hates his job. The person has been in his job for over a year. He likes the tasks that he does. It’s his coworkers that make life miserable. I don’t have space to describe the specifics, but I doubt that [...]

Nonprofit Organizations–Take Care of Your Volunteers

I recently finished a research project looking at how volunteers and paid staff communicate with each other at nonprofit organizations.  One part of that was measuring how satisfied volunteers were, and I considered four types of satisfaction—satisfaction with the way the organization supports me, satisfaction with my ability to make a difference, satisfaction with the [...]

Be Happy

One more thing as to satisfaction and expectations in the workplace.  Be happy.  Don’t worry about the circumstances around you.  Just be happy.  That sounds cheesy and fairy-tale-esque.  Be sometimes, happiness is about a choice to overcome your circumstances.  Here are some ideas to get started.
 

Satisfying Expectations

What do you expect from work? There are sometimes when work is just bad and that leads to dissatisfaction. Other times, it’s because we have unrealistic expectations. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be optimistic. However, expecting work to fulfill all of your needs, in most cases, is setting yourself up to be dissatisfied. There’s [...]

Other Findings from my Class

The other finding that my organizational communication class really identified was that job satisfaction decreased and burnout increased the further away employees were from the mission of the nonprofit.  One organization had a central headquarters that managed things and several sites where the actual helping work of the nonprofit was carried out.  Groups looking at this organization said [...]

Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction is a tricky thing.  We can have all of the things like pay and benefits, but still not be satisfied.  On the other hand, we can have challenging task that fulfill us while not being properly compensated.  You might think that being more satisfied would make you more productive at work.  Actually, research [...]