Women happier than men in employment

Can't get no satisfaction? Then you're probably male according to new research by Human Synergistics.

Undertaken to evaluate employee job satisfaction and staying-power, the research concludes that women are much happier in their jobs generally, and are much more satisfied with their employment, than their male counterparts.

The research, which used Human Synergistics' Organisational Effectiveness Inventory (OEI) survey, was carried out in April and is based on 182 New Zealand and Australian companies, involving 11,658 people.

Shaun McCarthy, chairman of Human Synergistics said: "The OEI assesses virtually all internal factors and conditions that are likely to impact on an organisation's performance including its structures, systems, technologies and skills or qualities of its leaders. All of these elements contribute to an organisation's culture and reflect, either positively or negatively, on employee job satisfaction."

The survey found that men tend to be more dissatisfied overall yet tend to stay with a job anyway. Women, while more satisfied than men in their jobs, say they are very clear about the parameters for that happiness and satisfaction. "If certain internal factors change in their employment then they quickly become dissatisfied and will leave an organisation," says McCarthy.

Generally for males, job satisfaction comes from such factors as; receiving respect, involvement, fairness of appraisals and heavy goal emphasis, for example having their manager encourage high standards and best effort.

According to the report, females are more relationship-oriented and look for consideration, receiving respect, respect for their manager and low use of punishment. A lack of these factors will more than likely cause them to have lower job satisfaction and would influence their decision to leave the job.

For both males and females, however, one factor was in common. Training and development was the number one factor most strongly associated with job satisfaction. Where there is a lack of adequate training and development, both males and females will be dissatisfied in their jobs.

"Such findings should be taken seriously by employers - the more understanding of the causal factors motivating job fulfilment, the less employee dissatisfaction which often leads to costly employee turnover," says McCarthy.