PSY 270 Module 6 Job Satisfaction, Stress and Withdrawal Report example

Satisfaction, Strain and the Decision to Leave: Grow Technicians at Brightleaf Growers

[Student Name]

Southern New Hampshire University

PSY 270: Introduction to Industrial Organizational Psychology

Module Six Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The organization, setting and figures below are a composite written as a model document. No real employer, client, colleague or patient is described.

Satisfaction, Strain and the Decision to Leave: Grow Technicians at Brightleaf Growers

Purpose

Earlier analyses of the grow technician job at Brightleaf Growers found low autonomy and feedback, lenient appraisal and 38 percent annual turnover. This report measures how technicians feel about their jobs, how much strain they report and how both relate to withdrawal, so that the company can see which factors are most closely tied to people leaving. A confidential survey was completed by 104 of the 140 technicians, 52 on day shifts and 52 on night shifts, and results were combined with HR records of absence.

Measures

Each construct was measured with established types of scales, adapted to the farm. Overall job satisfaction used three general items, such as "All in all, I am satisfied with my job," rated from 1 to 5. Facet satisfaction asked about five aspects of the job that satisfaction research commonly separates: the work itself, pay, supervision, coworkers and opportunities for promotion. Job demands were measured with items on workload, time pressure during alarms and the strain of night work. Job resources were measured with items on supervisor support, autonomy and feedback. Turnover intention was measured by agreement with "I am likely to look for a new job in the next year." Absence was taken from HR records as the percentage of scheduled shifts missed without notice over six months. All scales had acceptable internal consistency in this sample, with coefficient alpha between .78 and .88.

Satisfaction by Facet and Shift

Table 1 reports mean satisfaction on each facet, from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied).

Table 1

Mean Facet and Overall Satisfaction by Shift

Note. Composite survey data.

Reading the Satisfaction Results

Technicians like their coworkers and are neutral about pay. They are least satisfied with promotion opportunities and with the work itself, the two facets most closely tied to the job design problems identified earlier. Night technicians are less satisfied overall, and the gap is concentrated in the work itself and supervision rather than pay, which is the same for both shifts. This matters because the company's managers have assumed pay is the main problem.

Demands, Resources and Strain

The job demands-resources model proposes that strain develops when demands are high and resources are insufficient to meet them, while resources also build engagement (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Night technicians reported higher demands, especially time pressure during alarms, when they are often alone, and lower resources, especially supervisor support, since supervisors cover two buildings at night. The model predicts that this combination produces the most strain, and it did: 44 percent of night technicians reported feeling "used up" at the end of a shift often or always, compared with 23 percent on days. Among technicians with high demands, those who reported strong supervisor support showed strain levels close to the low-demand group, consistent with the model's claim that resources buffer demands.

What Relates to Withdrawal

Forty-seven percent of technicians agreed that they were likely to look for a new job in the next year. Table 2 shows how each factor relates to that intention.

Table 2

Correlations of Attitudes, Demands and Resources With Turnover Intention

Note. Composite data, n = 104. All correlations shown are statistically significant at p < .05.

Interpreting Withdrawal

Overall satisfaction has the strongest relationship with intent to leave, and among specific factors the work itself, promotion and supervision matter more than pay. Absence follows the same pattern: night technicians missed 6.1 percent of scheduled shifts without notice, compared with 3.4 percent on days, and absence was higher among those with low satisfaction. Harrison et al. (2006) found that overall job attitudes predict a broad pattern of engagement and withdrawal, including lateness, absence and turnover, more strongly than they predict any single behavior, which suggests that absence at Brightleaf is an early signal of the same process that ends in resignation. When a technician starts missing night shifts, the company is watching a resignation in progress.

Satisfaction also matters for performance. Judge et al. (2001) estimated the correlation between job satisfaction and job performance at about .30 across many studies, so improving satisfaction is likely to bring modest gains in performance as well as retention.

Limitations

The data are cross-sectional and self-reported, so they show associations, not causes, and technicians who were already planning to leave may have rated everything more negatively. Turnover intention is a strong but imperfect predictor of actual departures. The survey should be repeated in six months and linked to actual turnover to confirm the pattern.

Where to Act First

The evidence points to three priorities, in order. First, add resources on night shifts, particularly a second supervisor or lead technician at night, since support buffers the demands that night technicians face. Second, redesign the work to increase autonomy, task identity and feedback, which addresses the weakest satisfaction facet. Third, create visible promotion steps from technician to senior technician and lead. Pay adjustments may still be warranted, but the data suggest they would do less than these changes.

Tracking the Measures Over Time

These measures are most useful as a running record rather than a single snapshot. I recommend that Brightleaf repeat the full survey twice a year and add a four-item pulse check each quarter covering overall satisfaction, supervisor support, workload and turnover intention. Absence without notice should be reported monthly by shift, since it moves faster than survey scores and, as the analysis showed, tends to precede resignations. Results should be shared with technicians along with what the company is doing in response; surveys that produce no visible action tend to lower response rates and trust the next time. Finally, when the night lead role and the job redesign are introduced, the company should compare the next survey's results for night and day shifts with this baseline. If night satisfaction and support rise and night absence falls toward the day level, the company will have evidence that the changes are working, not only a hope that they are.

References

Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The job demands-resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309-328. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940710733115

Harrison, D. A., Newman, D. A., & Roth, P. L. (2006). How important are job attitudes? Meta-analytic comparisons of integrative behavioral outcomes and time sequences. Academy of Management Journal, 49(2), 305-325. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2006.20786077

Judge, T. A., Thoresen, C. J., Bono, J. E., & Patton, G. K. (2001). The job satisfaction-job performance relationship: A qualitative and quantitative review. Psychological Bulletin, 127(3), 376-407. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.127.3.376