Final answer:
Job satisfaction is of critical importance to employers as it affects both organizational productivity and employee well-being, linked to positive organizational behavior and lower incidences of workplace deviance and underperformance. Organizational psychology examines these interactions and their effects on productivity, suggesting improvements in job satisfaction can lead to better organizational performance.
Step-by-step explanation:
Understanding why an employer should care about job satisfaction involves examining the links between satisfaction at work, workplace deviance, lower job satisfaction, and underperformance. Job satisfaction directly impacts organizational productivity and employee well-being. It has been correlated with voluntary behaviors benefiting the organization and overall life satisfaction, implying that happier workers are likely to contribute more to their organizations. Conversely, low job satisfaction is connected to withdrawal behaviors like increased absenteeism and employment turnover, although the link to turnover is considered weak.
Factors such as workplace stress, perceived risk, and vulnerability to stress are strongly predictive of lower job satisfaction, alongside a lack of positive feedback, hazardous working conditions, bureaucratic frustrations, and excessive workload. Measures that may counteract dissatisfaction include positive organizational behavior, enhancing employee engagement, and implementing job enrichment strategies. Organizational psychology is the specific area of Industrial-Organizational (I-O) psychology that measures job satisfaction, focusing on the dynamics of employee interactions within a company and their effect on productivity.
It is essential to recognize that employees' sense of autonomy, their connection to the decision-making process, and freedom from over-surveillance are all significant contributors to job satisfaction. Hence, these areas might need to be addressed to enhance workplace contentment and performance.