Hanging on or Fading Out?

Abstract

Job satisfaction remains an important issue for public managers, as they try to motivate workers in today's political environment. Many of the motivational efforts are centered around newer employees, while longer-term workers are automatically assumed to be committed to their jobs. In this study of a medium-size city fire department, employees were surveyed on five aspects of job satisfaction: satisfaction with the supervisor, satisfaction with agency relationships, satisfaction with job training, satisfaction with job content, and overall job satisfaction. The effects of job tenure on satisfaction were uniform across the five aspects. The newest employees were significantly more satisfied with their jobs than were longer-term employees, even when controlling for the organizational rank. For a successful workplace, employers must continue to invest in their longer-term employees even as they develop newer employees.

In the 1990s, public sector employers are struggled to maintain a competent and committed workforce. Nowhere was this more true than at the local level in services such as fire fighting where stress is a constant element of working, cooperative relationships are vital, and training demands are continual. Employers not only must hire and train new workers, but also encourage a continued high level of dedication and willingness to learn among their more long-term employees. This study looks at employee job satisfaction among the employees of a fire department in a medium-size city. It then discusses the ongoing challenges of motivating public workers at all levels of experience.