Unhappy at work? Find out if you should stay or quit

There are many factors to consider when weighing whether to leave your job, among them career prospects. PHOTO | FOTOSEARCH 

By SCOTT BELLOWS

In Summary

• Turnover tool to help workers ascertain the appropriateness of their jobs

A boss takes credit for your work. A CEO expects more from you but pays you less than other workers. A supervisor overschedules you and underutilises others.

A human resources department writes you threatening yet unnecessary warning letters. A manager refuses to sign-off on your work-related expenses.

An executive watches your every move, giving you no space to work as if you are a child. An arrogant director brags about her own minimal accomplishments and neglects to listen to any ideas from subordinate staff.

Any of these scenarios, amongst a myriad of other possible causes, lead one to toil and deliberate on whether to stay with an employer or quit.

Unfortunately, incompetent managers abound worldwide and frustrate staff while negligent companies disturb workers.

On the other hand, managers who progressively supervise employees retain an inspiring following of acolytes who work because of, not in spite of, their leadership.

The psychology behind employee intentions to quit permeates through mountains of social science research.

Business Talk previously wrote in-depth on intentions to quit in the February 5, 2016 edition of Business Daily. Workers desire to stay and executives want low turnover. However, often the two do not achieve their target and staff end up leaving organisations.

We receive multiple requests from readers each month seeking advice on when to quit their current employers. Inasmuch, over the next several weeks, Business Talk now embarks on a multi-part series empowering employees to discern when to quit jobs.

The Business Daily will then publish an online overarching survey in July, 2016, for Kenyan employees to fill out and receive automated assessment and advice on one’s own work decisions: quit or stay.

The series and the upcoming online employee turnover tool will help you ascertain the appropriateness of your job, amongst the following plethora of critical factors: job satisfaction, autonomy, perceived organisation support, supervisor support, organisational justice, procedural justice, fairness, organisation citizenship behaviour of colleagues, organisation commitment, organisation trust in executives, supervisors, and co-worker ability, benevolence, integrity, reliance, and disclosure, felt trust from management and supervisors, transformational leadership, types of leadership power utilised, workplace empathy, your own emotional intelligence, your career trajectory, job learning, type of performance evaluations, self-esteem, equitable workplace practices, personality work-fit, job task boredom, task significance, workplace stress, organisation culture and finally, your workplace’s environment.

Hopefully, the tools shared over the coming weeks will enable you to make smart job choices for the rest of your career.

In starting off, one of the greatest indicators that cause employees to desire to quit or stay with a firm involves job satisfaction.

Researchers Weiss and Brief define job satisfaction as a pleasurable emotional state resulting from an employee’s appraisal of his or her job.

Job satisfaction is a behavioural attitude. It leads towards one’s behavioural intention and thereafter behavioural action. Behavioural attitude covers many aspects of a jobResearchers Mark Griffin, Malcolm Patterson and Michael West in Australia and the UK developed questions that employees can ask themselves in order to decipher their pleasure with their employment.

Further research by Seyed Rahim Benrazavi and Abu Daud Silong in Malaysia highlights workers’ needs for achievement, recognition and nature of work.

Taking the powerful research into account, ask yourself the following 16 statements that represent different levels of satisfaction that you hold with your current workplace.

Take each declaration and judge it in your mind on the following 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 point scale whereby each number represents your following opinion of your workplace as: extremely dissatisfied (1), dissatisfied (2), somewhat dissatisfied (3), neither satisfied nor dissatisfied (4), somewhat satisfied (5), satisfied (6), extremely satisfied (7).

Write your numeric answer for each of the following proclamations: Your fellow workers. Freedom to choose your own method of working.

Opportunities to use your abilities. Management-worker relations. Your immediate boss. Physical working conditions. Recognition you get for good work. The amount of variety in your job. Job security. Chances of promotion. Your rate of pay.

The amount of responsibility in your job. Attention paid to your suggestions. The type of recognition you can gain through doing good work. Ability to achieve important milestones for your career. Type and nature of the regular work required.

Now add up the numbers for each of your answers. Take your total and divide it by sixteen (16) to give you your average response. If you scored a 5.5 or higher, then you enjoy a good job fit.

If your average result is between a 3.5 and 5.5, then it may be time for you to start contemplating different options in the short and medium term.

If you unfortunately rated your job satisfaction on average as below 3.5, then for your own and your family’s psychological health, you should commence an immediate search for a new job or even new career.

Read the Business Daily next Thursday and for the following several Thursdays for more variables to further ascertain whether you should quit or stay with your job.

Share your own job fit and job satisfaction stories with other readers through #KenyaTurnover on Twitter.

Scott may be reached on scott@ScottProfessor.com or follow on Twitter: @ScottProfessor