The satisfaction and retentionof frontline employees
A customer satisfactionmeasurement approachRoland T. Rust and Greg L. Stewart
Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University,Nashville, Tennessee, USA,
Heather MillerM/A/R/C Group, USA, and
Debbie PielackMBA Enterprise Corps, Lithuania
IntroductionEmployee satisfaction is perhaps the most frequently studied construct in theorganizational sciences (Schneider and Brief, 1992), with over 5,000 articles anddissertations having been written on the topic to date (Cranny et al., 1992). Thisresearch has provided a host of studies attempting to measure satisfaction, itsantecedents and its consequences. Yet, most organizations continue to strugglein their efforts to measure and improve employee attitudes related to work. Thispaper presents a new framework for understanding employee satisfaction, andthen reports the results of a study designed to test the utility of the newframework in an organizational setting.
Employee satisfaction (often referred to as job satisfaction) has been definedas “a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal ofones job or job experiences” (Locke, 1976, p. 1300). The link between thisemotional state and performance has historically been challenged (Brayfieldand Crockett, 1955; Organ, 1977; Vroom, 1964). However, a meta-analysisconducted by Petty et al. (1984) concluded that job satisfaction and performanceare indeed positively correlated (r = 0.23, uncorrected). Moreover, jobsatisfaction has been shown to relate positively with specific facets ofperformance like organizational citizenship behaviour (Organ, 1988; Smithet al., 1983), which is employee behaviour that is not formally required in a jobdescription but that is nevertheless critical for organizational success (e.g.helping co-workers, volunteering for extra assignments).
The authors thank the Tennessee Health Care Association and Vanderbilt’s Center for ServiceMarketing for their support of this project, and also thank Suzanne Moore, Leslie Nier, andRichard Sadler for their many comments and suggestions.
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An even more widely accepted relationship is the link between employeesatisfaction and employee turnover. Models of employee turnover almostuniversally propose a negative relationship between satisfaction and turnover(Hom and Griffeth, 1991; Hulin et al., 1985; March and Simon, 1958; Mobleyet al., 1979; Price and Mueller, 1986; Rusbult and Farrell, 1983). Moreimportantly, three meta-analyses have concluded that such a link exists(Carsten and Spector, 1987; Hom and Griffeth, 1995; Steel and Ovalle, 1984), andstudies using structural equation modelling techniques support the viability ofa causal relationship (Hom and Griffeth, 1991; Price and Mueller, 1986).Improving employee satisfaction thus appears to be instrumental fordecreasing employee turnover.
Increasing employee satisfaction and thereby reducing employee turnover iscritical. Estimates suggest that separation, replacement and training costs are1.5 to 2.5 times annual salary for each person who quits (Solomon, 1988), whichmeans that the departure of a middle manager usually costs an organizationaround $75,000 (Dalton et al., 1993). These figures, however, only begin toillustrate the value of retaining loyal employees. Long-tenured employeesdevelop personal relationships with customers. These relationships are thefoundation for a reinforcing cycle of positive interactions between employeesand customers (Reichheld, 1993; Reichheld and Sasser, 1990; Schlesinger andHeskett, 1991). Employees who perceive relationships with customers providebetter service. Customers who receive better service express fewer complaintsand thereby create fewer problems for employees. Employees in turn react morefavourably to encounters with customers. These reactions result in betterservice which again leads to higher customer satisfaction.
The effects of the positive encounter cycle are shown in research that hasfound positive correlations between employee and customer attitudes(Schneider and Bowen, 1985; Schneider et al., 1980). Organizations withsatisfied employees have satisfied customers. This results in organizations withsatisfied employees having higher levels of customer retention (Schneider andBowen, 1985), which increases overall profitability (Reichheld and Sasser, 1990).
The retention of employees who develop continuing positive interactionswith customers will become even more critical in the future. Employees withvaluable work skills are becoming more scarce. For instance, immigrants withcomparatively low levels of education are currently accounting for nearly halfthe growth in the USA (Feuer, 1987a). One survey illustrated that the demandfor service workers will grow by 27 per cent between 1986 and 2000 (Kutscher,1987; Schlesinger and Heskett, 1991). Over this same period of time the numberof available workers will grow by less than 18 per cent (Kutscher, 1987), withmuch of the growth being among less skilled workers (Schlesinger and Heskett,1991). Quality employees will thus become increasingly difficult to attract and itwill become imperative for organizations to improve their ability to retaincompetent workers.
A first step in the process of increasing employee retention is often theadministration of a satisfaction survey that seeks to measure employee
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perceptions. These surveys ask employees to rate their satisfaction withaspects of the work environment like pay, supervision, co-workers, opportunityfor promotion, and the work itself (Smith et al., 1969). Organizational leadersthen take these ratings and evaluate them to determine areas whereimprovement can be made. Unfortunately, standardized questionnairesfrequently ask irrelevant questions and fail to detect the strongest drivers ofsatisfaction (Sahl, 1990). The result is a feeling among employees that theirinputs have been ignored (Feuer, 1987b), which can actually lead to furtherreductions in satisfaction and thereby increase the likelihood of turnover.
Effectively measuring and improving employee satisfaction is thus a criticalfunction of contemporary management. Because businesses are becoming morecompetitive, and because employees with the skills and abilities needed toobtain competitive advantages are becoming more scarce, management can nolonger afford to see employees as replaceable inputs (Miles and Creed, 1995).Management must rather view employees as valuable contributors whoseopinions and perceptions are important sources of knowledge. This requires thedevelopment of relationships that go outside the bounds of traditionalhierarchy, as well as the acknowledgement that employee retention isdependent on a continuing exchange of agreements and contributions betweenemployees and firms (Rousseau and Parks, 1992). In this sense, employees aresimilar to customers; their satisfaction and retention are instrumental.
The notion of employee as customer has been previously developed. Forexample, Berry (1981) states that whether managing customers or employees“the central purpose remains the same: the attraction of patronage through thesatisfaction of needs and wants” (p. 35). In both cases individuals andorganizations are involved in exchange. The nature of what is exchanged mayvary, but the importance of satisfying needs and wants remains constant,meaning that the management of employees is often similar to the managementof customers.
Many similarities between customers and employees can be illustratedthrough an examination of the satisfaction process. Customer needs and wantsare satisfied when they perceive goods and services to have value that meets orexceeds their expectations (Anderson and Sullivan, 1993; Oliver, 1980).Similarly, employee needs and wants are satisfied when they perceive thatrewards from the organization (e.g. pay, promotion, recognition, personalgrowth, meaningful work) meet or exceed their expectations (Hackman andOldham, 1980; Locke, 1976). Needs and wants of either customers or employeesare not satisfied when the value obtained from an organization is less than whatis expected.
High satisfaction has been linked to retention of both customers andemployees. Customers who are satisfied have higher repurchase intentions,which in turn translate into repeat purchases (Anderson and Sullivan, 1993;Rust and Zahorik, 1993). Employees who are satisfied have higher intentions ofstaying with an organization, which results in decreased turnover (Mobleyet al., 1979). Fishbein and Ajzen’s (1975) theory of reasoned action is at the heart
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of both the employee and the customer links between satisfaction andbehaviour.
The theory of reasoned action asserts that attitudes lead to intentions whichlead to behaviours. This theory has received a great deal of empirical support(Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; Hom and Hulin, 1981; Steele and Ovalle, 1984), andillustrates the similarity between the psychological mechanisms underlyingcustomer and employee retention. High satisfaction results in an intention toremain in the economic exchange with the organization. Intentions translatedirectly to behaviour, suggesting that employees are indeed similar tocustomers when it comes to satisfaction and retention.
Given the realization that employees may be viewed as customers, it seemssensible to ask whether the field of customer satisfaction measurement hasdeveloped any insights recently that can be applied in the employee setting. Infact, the quality revolution has prompted an explosion in customer satisfactionresearch, and recent years have brought impressive gains in merging the field ofcustomer satisfaction (traditionally focusing on consumer psychology andpaying little attention to managerial application) with the field of servicequality (traditionally focusing on managerial issues, and not paying muchattention to psychological theory). Many of the resulting insights may proveuseful in the employee satisfaction arena.
One advance that has made customer satisfaction measurement moreactionable is the realization that the primary purpose of customer satisfactionsurveys is usually quality improvement. This means that customer satisfactionquestionnaires must be structured in such a way that they connect in directways to business processes, such as sales, billing, repair, etc. (Kordupleski et al.,1993). Without a direct connection from customer satisfaction to businessprocesses, the customer satisfaction surveys cannot be made actionable (Rust etal., 1995).
Other recent advances are in scaling. Questions asking satisfaction (e.g. on a“very satisfied” to “very dissatisfied” scale) or quality (e.g. on an “excellent” to“poor” scale) typically result in a high percentage of responses in the “top box”,the most positive response category (Peterson and Wilson, 1992). This reducesthe sensitivity of the scale. To combat this, an asymmetric disconfirmation scalehas been proposed (Rust et al., 1995) that significantly reduces the number ofresponses in the top box. This permits the researcher to distinguish highergradations of response. Customer satisfaction researchers have referred to thehighest level of satisfaction as “delight” (Oliver 1989; Westbrook and Oliver1991), and managerial researchers have developed methods of determining thedifferential impact of delight (DeSarbo et al., 1994, Rust et al., 1995).
The purpose of this paper is to show how several of these recent advances incustomer satisfaction measurement can be applied usefully in the context offrontline employee satisfaction and retention. This requires a change ofmanagement paradigm, from frontline employee as low-paid servant tofrontline employee as customer. The frontline employee must be viewed as not
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just someone who must listen to management, but also as someone whomanagement must listen to.
To operationalize this perspective, we conducted a study of low-paid,frontline service employees in nursing homes. We used customer satisfactionmeasurement methods to determine their satisfaction levels and their intentionto stay on the job. We tied the results of the surveys to management processes,and derived concrete recommendations for management action. We alsoassessed the degree to which management was willing and able to change itsparadigm to frontline employee as customer.
The following section gives an overview of the method used in our study, andsummarizes the results, then finally presents our conclusions, limitations of theresearch and, directions for future research.
MethodWe sought to apply advanced concepts and techniques from customersatisfaction measurement and customer retention to the problem area ofemployee turnover. We implemented this approach in the context of theemployee satisfaction and retention of certified nurse’s assistants (CNAs) innursing homes. To complete the study, we worked with a major nursing hometrade association, which facilitated communication with the nursing homes,and helped enlist their co-operation. The retention of CNAs had long been aproblem, and the association was eager to explore new methods of improvingCNA satisfaction and turnover. We structured our method according to anapproach to customer satisfaction and customer retention that recently hadbeen published in the marketing literature (Rust et al., 1995).
Exploratory researchAlthough the critical attitudes and behaviours were those of the CNAs, werealized that our ability to stimulate positive change was limited bymanagement buy-in. Therefore we conducted preliminary interviews ofmanagement. We began by assembling a complete list of all administrators anddirectors of nursing employed by member facilities, and sorting those lists bysix geographical districts. There was a strong feeling among facilityadministrators that rural areas might be different from urban areas. For thisreason we suspected that geographical location might have an impact on ourresults, so from those lists we drew exploratory samples of one administratorand one director of nursing from each of the six geographical districts. Half ofthose interviewed were from rural areas, and half were from urban areas.
During the interview process, the administrators and directors of nursingwere asked to give their hypotheses on the reasons for high CNA turnover. Allwere very co-operative and appeared to be very forthcoming with theiropinions. The interviewees were contacted on the job, and interviews lastedapproximately 15 minutes. Since there was little variance in the responsesreceived, we would not expect to gain much new information by increasing the
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sample size – because the sample was very homogeneous, the sample size couldbe kept small.
After the preliminary interviews of management, we interviewed theemployees themselves. The association was unable to provide a list of all CNAscurrently employed by member nursing homes. However, they were able tosupply us with a complete list of nursing homes. From this list, we randomlyselected six nursing homes from each of the six districts. We then requested,directly from each nursing home, a list of CNAs. The CNAs were interviewed athome, and the interviews lasted approximately 20 minutes. They were askedtheir satisfaction levels with various aspects of their jobs.
We augmented the interviews of current CNAs with interviews of formerCNAs. Six focus group interviews of former CNAs were conducted, one in eachdistrict. We obtained the list of former CNAs from the nursing homes directly.The former CNAs were contacted by home, and then invited to participate in afocus group interview.
Process structureOne of the benefits of the exploratory interviews was that we were able to groupthe information into managerial processes. This process structure is essential toguarantee actionability of the study’s findings. It is important to be able toidentify the “owners” of the process, so they can take ownership over change.
From the focus group interviews and personal interviews of CNAs andformer CNAs, we identified four main managerial processes that were linked toemployee satisfaction and retention (see Figure 1). These were:
(1) supervision;(2) benefits;(3) work design; and (4) work conditions.
(The employees also expressed almost universal concern about pay, but becausefew employees were expected to admit on a questionnaire that they are paidadequately, we address this issue indirectly – see Results.) Within each of theseprocesses we also identified more specific sub-processes that can provide moredetailed diagnostic information about what needs to be changed within theprocess.
Effect of satisfaction and delightDividing satisfaction into the broad, qualitative categories of satisfaction anddelight facilitates identifying the nature of managerial change. We mayconsider the categories of satisfaction and delight as dividing the spectrum ofsatisfaction response into three broad categories: “dissatisfied”, “satisfied” and“delighted”. Management may then concern itself with one of two shifts: eitherfrom dissatisfied to satisfied, or from satisfied to delighted. Shifting employeesfrom dissatisfied to satisfied involves solving or avoiding problems. Shifting
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employees from satisfied to delighted involves adding extras. Thus, we see thatthe focus of management is quite different depending on whether we aremanaging for satisfaction or delight.
Given our process structure, combined with the differentiation of satisfactionand delight, we are now able to state the functional relationships that drive ourmodel. Pictorially, our model is depicted well by a tree diagram (see Figure 2).Analytically, the tree diagram is expressed as follows. First, we note thatemployee retention is assumed influenced by whether they are satisfied ordelighted overall:
ER = f1 (OS, OD)where ER is employee retention, OS is overall employee satisfaction, and OD isoverall employee delight. We use the individual employee as the unit of analysisfor this study, although it is also possible to use larger units, such as nursinghomes, if there were enough of them, and if response could be assumed to behomogeneous within nursing homes.
We then relate the processes to the overall satisfaction and delight: OS = f2 (PS1, PS2, …)OD = f3 (PD1, PD2, …)
Notes: aSub-processes are omitted, for ease of expositionbMost important drivers
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where PSj is satisfaction with process j, and PDj is delight with process j. Wesimilarly relate the sub-processes to the processes.
There are many ways to scale these variables. For our purposes we treat eachof the variables as a zero-one dummy variable. For example, if a respondentmay choose between “delighted”, “satisfied” and “dissatisfied”, then the delightdummy variable is one only if the “delighted” category is chosen, while the“satisfied” dummy variable is one if either the “delighted” or “satisfied”category is chosen. In a regression format, this makes the delight coefficientequal to the incremental effect of delight over mere satisfaction. There arealternative scalings and codings that produce essentially the same results, onlywith different interpretations of the coefficients (see Rust et al., 1995, foralternatives). Our purpose here is not to defend any particular method ofoperationalization, but rather to show how the general customer satisfactionmeasurement approach can be applied in the employee satisfaction andretention context.
SamplingTo implement the models above, we needed to move beyond the exploratorydata analysis phase, and to conduct a probability sample that would generatestatistically generalizable results. Our population was defined as the CNAs whowere currently employed within the association’s jurisdiction. An accuratesample frame, a complete list of CNAs, did not exist. For this reason weemployed a multi-stage cluster sample. In the first stage, we randomly selectednursing homes, with a probability weighted according to the number of beds inthe facility. The number of beds is an easily-obtained measure of the size of thefacility, that generally correlates strongly with other variables such as numberof patients and number of employees. We selected 40 homes out of a total of 96for this analysis. We could not sample all 96 because of time and budgetconstraints.
The second stage randomly sampled ten CNAs from each home, for a total of400. The probability of selection for each CNA can then be calculated as the
Figure 2.A model of employee
satisfaction andretention
Employeeoverallsatisfaction(OS)
Employeesatisfactionwithprocesses (PS)
Employeesatisfactionwith sub-processes
Employeeoveralldelight (OD)
Employeedelight withprocesses(PD)
Employeedelight withsub-processes
Employeeretention(ER)
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product of the probabilities that the CNA’s nursing home was selected,multiplied by the probability that the individual CNA was selected, conditionalon the CNA’s nursing home being selected. The inverse of this probability canthen be used as a weighting factor in the analysis (Kish, 1965).
Data collectionWe administered a telephone survey for several reasons: the response ratestend to be very high, interviewing is rapid, and, more importantly, we were notconfident in the reading level of the CNAs. As many CNAs do not have hometelephones, we contacted the selected respondents in their respective nursinghome facilities. To minimize bias, we contacted each administrator andrequested that they provide CNAs with a private place in which to respond tothe questionnaire, and each CNA was promised confidentiality.
Both part-time and full-time CNAs were surveyed throughout the day,evening and night shifts, including weekends. Fourteen CNAs refused torespond to the questionnaire. To uphold the integrity of the sample, thesurveyors attempted to contact each CNA multiple times, if necessary. In sum,326 CNAs completed surveys, for a response rate of 81.5 per cent.
Survey designTo ensure that the survey was pertinent to CNA concerns and was writtenusing the CNA’s own terminology, we incorporated the information gatheredfrom the exploratory research. We asked each CNA questions about theirlikelihood of still working at the same job in a year’s time, their overallsatisfaction and, satisfaction on each of the processes and sub-processesidentified in the exploratory phase. The scale used for the satisfactionquestions was a disconfirmation scale, measuring how performance related toexpectations. Disconfirmation scales have been long advocated by customersatisfaction theorists (e.g. Oliver, 1980), have long been used successfully tomeasure service quality (e.g. Parasuraman et al., 1988), and have been shownto work better in practical applications than other alternatives (Devlin et al.,1993). The exact scale used was “much better than expected”, “about asexpected”, and “worse than expected”, which has been used successfully inmany practical applications (e.g. Rust et al., 1995). To facilitate exposition, wewill refer to the “much better than expected” category as “delighted”, the“about as expected” category as “satisfied”, and the “worse than expected”category as “dissatisfied”, although we recognize that the actualcorrespondence, while close, is not perfect.
ResultsWe first notice from the data that intention to remain employed is stronglyinfluenced by the level of employee satisfaction (see Figure 3). Interestingly,both the jump from dissatisfied to satisfied, and the jump from satisfied todelighted result in large, highly statistically significant changes in the meanintention to remain employed. Determining the causes of employee satisfaction
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and delight should, thus, be helpful in devising programmes that will improveemployee retention.
Drivers of employee satisfactionAccording to our model, overall employee satisfaction is driven by satisfactionwith managerial processes related to employee wellbeing. These processesinclude supervision, benefits, work design and work environment. We alsoconsider the impact of hourly wage, because employee dissatisfaction withwages was frequently encountered in our exploratory research. Because wedetermined that responses to questions about pay would not be good indicators,we instead used the actual hourly wage of the employee. If wages were animportant driver of overall satisfaction, then higher paid employees could beexpected to be more satisfied overall.
Determining the key drivers of satisfaction can be done using sophisticateddata analysis techniques such as logit regression (Rust and Zahorik, 1993),covariance structure analysis (Fornell, 1992), or the equity estimator (Rust et al.,1995). Conventional multiple regression analysis will not work well, because theprocess satisfaction levels are certain to be highly correlated, leading tounstable parameter estimates. In our application, we were faced with a dilemma– because the mathematical sophistication of our client was very limited, wecould not apply one of the advanced techniques. Still, we needed to use a methodthat would result in stable model coefficients. We concluded that because theabsolute magnitudes of the coefficients were not important, goodapproximations of the relative impact of the predictor variables could beobtained by conducting pairwise regression analyses, which could (with someeffort) be adequately graphed and explained for our client. (It can also be shown
Figure 3.Effect of employee
satisfaction and delighton intention to remain
employed
2.97
Dissatisfied
3.85
Satisfied
4.45
Delighted
Average intention to remain employed
5
4
3
2
1
Key1 = Very unlikely2 = Somewhat unlikely3 = Neither likely nor unlikely4 = Somewhat likely5 = Very unlikely
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that if the correlations between the independent variables are equal, then thisapproach yields the same order of importance as more involved approaches.)
The outcomes of our pairwise regressions for predicting overall employeesatisfaction are shown in Table I. We see that all variables are significant, butwork environment is the best predictor. A one-point increase in workenvironment satisfaction is related to a 0.44 increase in overall employeesatisfaction, on average. Also we see, interestingly, that hourly wage is theweakest predictor of overall satisfaction, with a $1 per hour pay increasepredicting only a 0.05 increase in overall employee satisfaction, hardly enoughto justify the pay increase.
Because satisfaction with the work environment appears to be critical, we thenaddress the sub-processes that have the greatest impact on work environmentsatisfaction. The most significant predictor is satisfaction with supplies, with aone-point improvement in satisfaction with supplies predicting a 0.29 increasein work environment satisfaction.
Drivers of employee delightWhile the drivers of employee satisfaction indicate which areas will avoidemployee dissatisfaction, the drivers of delight indicate areas that can result inexceeding employee expectations. The two strongest drivers of employeedelight are work design and work environment (see Table II). Supervision andbenefits were also significantly related to employee delight, but not as strongly.Hourly wage had no significant effect on employee delight.
Within the process of work design, the strongest predictor of delight wasnumber of pay periods. Within the process of work environment, the strongestpredictor of delight was supplies, which also appeared in the analysis ofemployee satisfaction.
Dependent variableOverall satisfaction Work environment satisfaction
Implications for managementThe above analyses provide some clear directions for management. Theappearance of work environment as an important process and, supplies as themost important sub-process of work environment, in both the satisfaction anddelight analyses, indicates that management must address the issue of makingadequate supplies available for the CNAs. From the preliminary exploratoryresearch phase, combined with follow-up interviews following the writtensurvey, we may also infer that the supplies issue may be a sign of a larger issue– that of supervisors’ concern for the CNAs. Although confidentiality wasassured, some CNAs may have felt uncomfortable criticizing their supervisorsdirectly in a personal interview with a stranger.
The delight analysis also shows that an important driver of employee delightis the number of paydays. From the exploratory research and follow-upinterviews, we conclude that employees want to be paid weekly, rather thanmonthly.
To be effective, management is wise to address only the most important oneor two issues. In this case, the recommended actions might include “supplyforums” in which supervisors and management listen to CNA concerns andideas about how to improve the availability of supplies. This would have thedouble benefit of addressing both the ostensible problem (supplies) and thepossible underlying problem (management concern for the CNAs). Anotherrecommended action arising from the research is for management to increasethe number of paydays, paying CNAs once per week.
Dependent variableOverall delight Work design delight Work environment satisfaction
ConclusionsWe have presented a customer satisfaction measurement approach toevaluating employee satisfaction and retention. That approach focuses on theemployee, but does so using a structure based on the management processesthat relate to the employee. In this way, we can provide a bridge from employeesatisfaction and retention to the processes that drive satisfaction and retention.
Changing management’s paradigmOne of the things we quickly realized in our research is that the centralparadigm of our research approach – that of employee as customer – is not easyfor management and supervisors to accept. They continually asked us to focusthe study on them and their desires instead and, appeared to find therecommendation of listening to the employees to be threatening. Neverthelessthe simple but fundamental issue of changing management’s paradigm from“employee as servant” to “employee as customer” appears to be crucial.
The advantage of starting from ignoranceAnother realization from the research was the importance of starting fromignorance that is, letting exploratory research determine the direction that thesurvey should take, rather than imposing too much of a structure. Managementmade two assumptions at the start of the project:
(1) that pay was the most important issue in employee retention; and (2) that the second most important issue was employees’ dislike of their
supervisors. Both were reasonable suppositions, because employees were well-known tocomplain vociferously about both their pay and their supervisors. However,allowing the research to speak for itself identified other issues that were moreimportant. We see that the progression from exploratory research (personalinterviews, focus groups, etc.) to quantitative research (analysis of employeesatisfaction survey data) permits the quantitative research to focus on theissues which have been identified by the exploratory research, rather than justthe issues that management supposes should be important.
The process structure facilitates implementationOrganizing the employee satisfaction survey by management process makes itmuch easier to identify the changes that management should make, based onthe results of the survey. In this case, use of a process and sub-process structurefocused on two very specific areas that management could concentrate on –number of paydays and availability of adequate supplies. These very concreteimprovement areas contrast dramatically with the sort of improvement areasthat are typically identified by factor analysing a satisfaction survey. In thelatter case, we too often see improvement areas such as “friendliness” or“professionalism,” things that are not localized within the organization, and forwhich management authority is difficult to assign.
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Satisfaction drivers differ from delight driversIncorporating delight into the analysis yields insights that would not otherwisebe available. For example, number of paydays turned out to be a driver ofdelight, but not a driver of satisfaction. In other words, increasing frequency ofpay to weekly is something that would exceed the expectations of theemployees and improve their retention, even though number of paydays is notcurrently considered a problem. As has been previously demonstrated withcustomer satisfaction surveys (e.g. DeSarbo et al., 1994; Rust et al., 1995) thedrivers of employee satisfaction are not the same as the drivers of employeedelight. Drivers of satisfaction can be thought of as things that solve or preventproblems, while drivers of delight can be thought of as extras that takeadvantage of opportunity.
HR can benefit from advances in marketingThe results of this study particularly illustrate how the field of human resourcemanagement can benefit from recent advances in the area of customersatisfaction measurement. Gathering qualitative data, and using that data todevelop a customized survey, limits the amount of bias introduced bymanagement perceptions about employee satisfaction. In contrast, thetraditional practices of using standardized questionnaires and developingquestions based solely on management’s ideas often fail to measure importantdimensions of satisfaction accurately (Futrell, 1994; Sahl, 1990). Involvingemployees in the questionnaire development phase not only provides a clearerpicture of satisfaction but also allows for increased participation.
Connecting employee perceptions with specific business processes alsoprovides an actionable framework for implementing changes that directlyrespond to employee concerns. This assures that once the data is collected,management can clearly determine actions that will increase satisfaction. Thisshould help eliminate the common criticism that management fails to follow-upon satisfaction survey results.
Another interesting outcome of this study is the separation of employeesatisfaction and delight drivers. Dating back to the work of Herzberg (1966),much research has been done to establish and support a two-factor structureunderlying perceptions of work. The two structures have generally beenlabelled hygiene factors and motivators. Hygiene factors are assumed tocorrelate with elements of dissatisfaction, while motivators are thought to affectsatisfaction. Satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not seen as opposite ends of asingle continuum, but as perceptions driven by unique characteristics of thework environment. This is similar to the distinction between customersatisfaction and delight.
One problem with Herzberg’s theory has been operationalizing it in a mannerthat consistently yields valid results (Grigaliunas and Weiner, 1974; King, 1970).The procedure used in this study provides a method of better distinguishinggradations of response, and therefore holds great promise in determiningdifferences between the work characteristics that move employees from
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dissatisfaction to satisfaction (similar to Herzberg’s hygiene factors) and thosethat move them from satisfaction to delight (motivators). This is one area wherecross-disciplinary research can seemingly lead to greater understanding oftheories and research methods in both human resource management andmarketing.
LimitationsA few limitations of the present study should be noted. First, the specific driversof satisfaction and delight should not necessarily be expected to generalize toother settings. One strength of our research design is its ability to measurecharacteristics of the work environment that are unique to a setting. Thisapproach, nevertheless, limits the extent to which the findings reported herecan be generalized. Inferences that the same drivers exist in other settings arenot warranted.
Other limitations are associated with the way specific variables wereoperationalized. Our decision to use wage level as an indicator of paysatisfaction reduces some inflating biases that are normally associated withthis construct, but does not account for the effect of expectations. Becauseexpectations for pay are likely to influence perceptions of satisfaction (Oliver,1980), future research should use alternative operationalizations to clarify theextent to which pay drives satisfaction and delight. Responses to thedisconfirmation scale may also not be perfectly consistent with our categoriesof satisfaction and delight.
The process of conducting telephone interviews while employees were at thework site should also be taken into consideration when interpreting the resultsof the study. Telephone surveys have some definite advantages over writtenquestionnaires, but anonymity is decreased, increasing the possibility thatsome employees may not provide honest responses. In particular, the lack ofanonymity may have resulted in employees responding too favourably aboutquestions related to supervision. However, the efforts to assure confidentialityand to provide a private location for answering the questions should havealleviated much of this concern.
Finally, we should note that employee turnover was not directly assessed inthis study. Rather, we assessed the impact of satisfaction on intent to stay. Thisshould not however, be problematic, because the link between intentions andactions is well supported across a number of behaviours (Ajzen and Fishbein,1980), as well as specifically in the case of employee turnover (Mobley et al.,1979; Price and Mueller, 1986; Steele and Ovalle, 1984). Assuming a linkbetween intention and actual turnover thus seems reasonable.
Directions for future researchFertile areas for future research include both the direct application of thespecific methodology and the indirect application of the metaphor of employeesas customers. Our results suggest that the methodology can be successfullyadapted to measure employee satisfaction. Future studies utilizing this
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methodology can clarify relationships among pay and other satisfaction anddelight drivers. Additionally, the distinction between satisfaction and delightcan be further applied to the realm of employee perception as anoperationalization of Herzberg’s two-factor theory of job satisfaction. Theextent to which the drivers we report can be meaningfully grouped andgeneralized across settings also needs to be assessed in future studies.
The general notion that employees can be viewed as customers provides evenmore direction for future research. Recent research suggests that employees (aswell as potential employees) make decisions based on their perceptions of thevalue that the organization places on them (Rousseau, 1995; Rousseau andParks, 1992; Rynes, 1993). As qualified employees become more scarce,organizations are required to value them more, and thus to place greateremphasis on assuring their satisfaction. This observation suggests that thecustomer satisfaction model has a number of applications for the field of humanresource management.
For instance, Rynes (1993) has suggested that job applicants are most likelyto accept employment offers from organizations which seek to satisfy theirneeds. Yet, little empirical research has been done to support this theory.Thinking of job applicants as customers provides a rich theoretical basis fordetermining how individuals respond to the messages they receive as they arebeing recruited and selected. Linking surveys to specific processes ofrecruitment can also aid organizations in their efforts to improve their ability toattract quality workers.
In-house training and development is another area that can benefit from themetaphor of employee as customer. Many organizations tend to design andevaluate training without the input of the employees who are actually trained.This approach ignores the fact that employees themselves are often in the bestposition to assess their needs, as well as most capable of prescribing methodsfor improvement (Lawler, 1992; Manz and Sims, 1993). Thinking of frontlineemployees as customers requires the organization to not only seek their inputbut also to incorporate their evaluations into overall assessments of trainingoutcomes. Given the difficulty of properly evaluating training outcomes (Arveyand Cole, 1989), the application of customer satisfaction models seems to hold agreat deal of promise for research.
In summary, this study provides a foundation for additional studies that seekto utilize customer satisfaction models for measuring and improving employeeperceptions related to work. The application of these marketing models tohuman resource activities provides an opportunity for cross-disciplinaryresearch, which can increase the level of understanding in both fields.
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