Job satisfaction is nothing but one’s contentment at the workplace which the employee derives from his/her job. If an employee is not satisfied with the job, it is more likely that he/she will move on sooner or later. On the other hand, when an employee is content with his/her job, he/she develops loyalty and builds commitment to stick around.
Gartner says only 13% of employees are largely satisfied with their work experiences while employee experience remains one of the top talent concerns for HR leaders. In a survey conducted by Gartner, it was revealed that 46% of surveyed employees are largely dissatisfied with their overall experience at their workplace.
Source: Survey by Gartner
Job satisfaction is one of the critical needs of any employee in any organization as well as for corporate management. An employee’s satisfaction to stick around and perform well in any well-structured organization is dependent directly on how satisfied the employee is at his/her workplace.
Also Read: Making organizations more effective with employee empowerment
According to findings of a research study, it was found that there is a positively significant relation between the human resources practices’, job satisfaction and loyalty/commitment in various sectors. The study concluded that job satisfaction showed a significant impact on loyalty and commitment in the manufacturing and mining sector and there was at least significant relationship between the human resource practices, job satisfaction and loyalty/commitment in various sectors which validates the various theories and studies. The study also recommends that, stakeholders of the sectors should pay more attention to employees’ loyalty and commitment as this will enhance the improvement and help survive the current competition within these sectors. Read more about the research here.
Building job satisfaction through apprenticeship
It is evident that job satisfaction is important to build employee trust, commitment and loyalty because only when an employee is committed, he/she will bring value to the organization through their determination, proactiveness, and relatively high productivity and awareness of quality. But how do organizations build job satisfaction, commitment and loyalty in an employee? Apprenticeship is the answer to this question. Apprentices are “more satisfied” with their jobs than university graduates, reveals a new survey.
NotGoingToUni – a website which shows young people their options outside of going to university – spoke with almost 2,700 people, aged between 21 and 30, to find 68 percent of those who had taken an apprenticeship were fully satisfied in their career. Of the university graduates, only 26 percent agreed they were fully satisfied. Apprenticeships helped them to get better opportunities with a shift in their earning potentials.
Apprenticeship in India vs other countries
Apprenticeship in India has been marred low for many reasons over the years. From reluctance of industry to participate in apprenticeship programs to negligence at various levels, apprenticeship has been in the backseat for quite some time now. In fact, as per one estimation a mere 0.1% of the formal labour force is involved in an apprenticeship in India compared to 4% in other countries. [ILO, 2013].
The present scenario and going forward
However, there is some good news. With the government’s flagship projects like Make In India taking the lead, apprenticeship is gaining importance. Both industry and government have realized the importance of it and are embracing it wholeheartedly to bridge the skill gap between the industry demands and the young workforce that we have in hand. With the new reforms brought in the apprenticeship act by the government, we are about to see raise in hiring limit of apprentices to 15 percent of the total strength of an establishment, and their stipend to up to Rs 9,000 per month. As part of this new amend, various apprenticeship programs are been launched by the government to empower the youth for a better future. The apprenticeship Pakhwada was one such recent initiative by the government that worked towards creating a job-ready workforce. Needless to say, there is active participation from the industry to take this mission forward in the coming days. National Employability through Apprenticeship [NETAP] is India’s fastest growing as well as the largest private degree linked apprenticeship program in association with TeamLease Skills University.
With so much happening around, we are confident that India is about to have a new improved and empowered workforce where each of the employees found their job more meaningful bringing in a lot more job satisfaction, loyalty and commitment in the coming years.
