Question

What is the difference between motivation and job satifaction? Why should managers be more concerned about motivation than job satisfaction? How does training relate to job satisfaction?

Answer 1

Motivation is any stimulus that brings a desire to perform a particular action repeatedly and induces a sense of satisfaction. Motivation is primarily of two types- Extrinsic and Intrinsic. Extrinsic motivation may come from any external influences that causes a person to perform a particular action repeatedly. Whereas intrinsic motivation is a self-desire to perform or seek challenges which would bring about a sense of mental satisfaction.

Job satisfaction is the level of positivity or contentedness a person feels towards his or her job. This could be attributed to various factors such as work environment, nature of work, passion or even monetary benefits.

Motivation and satisfaction are closely related to each other. Job satisfaction could always be motivation for a person to work harder, however these two factors can be entirely independent of each other. An individual maybe motivated to work hard if he is promoted well but this might or might not result in job satisfaction. He would not be satisfied if the promotion brings in more stressful works. There are various scenarios that could be laid out when motivation and job satisfaction are combined-

High satisfaction with low motivation- where the complaints would be low but the work quality will be low as well.

High satisfaction with high motivation- where the complaints will be low but the work quality would be very high.

Low satisfaction with high motivation- this is a situation where employees work really well but feel that they are not rewarded well enough.

Low satisfaction with low motivation- This situation would be disastrous from a company perspective where neither the employees are motivated nor do they perform well.

Managers should be more concerned about motivation than job satisfaction because if the employees are well motivated that would perform really well for the organisation and it will be able to generate great revenues which could be later used to create a sense of job satisfaction with monetary benefits and other perks. As long as the employees are motivated the organisation will be able to generate good results so it is important to keep the employees motivated.

Training is a systematic procedure that helps people to discover how to be more efficient at work by modifying their knowledge, skills to achieve an efficient performance. When employees are provided more and effective training, employees feel satisfied about their knowledge and skillset which would also help them in future. Employees with proper training tend to perform well and are generally satisfied with their work environment. So training plays a major role in employee satisfaction.