HaroldUrman
New User
/ Moderator
May 20, 2008, 12:35 PM
Post #1 of 1
(1118 views)
Shortcut
|
|
What Drives Senior Services Employees Quality of Work Life
|
Can't Post
Private Reply
|
|
By Harold N. Urman, Ph.D
The best predictors of satisfaction for senior services employees are leadership skills, employee focus, trust in the organization, and workload. These are the findings based upon a national database of Senior Services Employees’ Quality of Work Life. By using data from more than 13,000 senior services employees, Vital Research, a consulting firm from Los Angeles, CA, found that Leadership Skills is the single most important driver of overall satisfaction.
Vital Research, also uncovered a number of interesting relationships between leadership skills, trust, and workload and select employee characteristics, such as department, gender, shift, years of experience with the organization, and salaried vs. hourly employees.
- Satisfaction with Leadership Skills, Trust, and Workload is highest in the first year of employment and significantly declines each year thereafter.
- The administrative department has the highest level of trust, while housekeeping/laundry has the lowest level.
- Salaried employees have significantly higher trust than hourly employees.
- The Nursing department has the lowest level of satisfaction with Leadership skills.
- There are few differences in employee satisfaction between males and females.
- The Nursing and Housekeeping/Laundry departments are least satisfied with workload.
- The day, evening, and night shift employees are less satisfied than the weekend “shift” with Leadership skills, Trust, and Workload.
In general, Trust and Workload satisfaction is much lower than Leadership Skills satisfaction. The average Trust score on a scale of 0 to 100 is 63. The average satisfaction with workload is 60, while the average satisfaction with Leadership Skills is 78.
But the picture is not all bleak. When employees were asked “Overall, how satisfied are you with your organization as a place to work”, 84% said they were very satisfied (38%) or satisfied (46%). In addition, responses to open-ended comments revealed that 59% of all comments (n=11,800) were about positive aspects to their job, which most often focused on residents, family members, and co-workers.
Another positive finding from the national database is that the benchmarks for satisfaction are slowly creeping up. For example, the benchmark for satisfaction with trust has gone from 59 to 68 in the last four years. In the same period, workload satisfaction has also increased slightly from 60 in 2005 to 62 today.
These findings indicate that satisfaction for employees working in senior services settings is relatively high, and continues to improve. Yet, there are still opportunities for improvement, which should center on Leadership Skills, Trust, and Workload satisfaction.
Harold N. Urman, Ph.D. is an educational psychologist and co-founder of Vital Research, a consulting firm specializing in research and evaluation. Established in 1982 and based in Los Angeles, Vital Research is a national research and consulting firm with expertise in senior living services satisfaction measurement.
---
|
MAIN
SEARCH
WHO'S 
LOG 
