The research examines various factors regarding job satisfaction in employment satisfaction among workers in public services. The working conditions in entirely different between the public sectors and private sectors in Australia due to different tax labor laws. Job satisfaction is vital for the company to grow in the competitive environment. Job satisfaction is referred the contentment of an individual from the job which can be measured in cognitive, behavioral and affective components. The Australian Tax Office is the agency of government’s principle revenue collection and manages the huge range of tax legislations. The role of ATO is important in several other social and economic policies in the form of large payer of government funds, provides of evaluation services by the Australian Valuation Office, superintendent of vital aspects of the superannuation system and the guardian of the Australian Business Register. The entire population of Australia gets impacted due to ATO. The research will define the various factors that may affect the job satisfaction among workers in public services. The project objective will be mentioned which support the entire research in an adequate manner and literature review will cover the project objectives.
The major objective of this research is to find out the factors that affect the job satisfaction among workers in public services. Australia Tax Office’s case study is taken to evaluate the various factors and to make comparative analysis with the support of different authors’ journal articles and books. The main project objective is to evaluate the challenges faced by the employees in the public sector.
The project scope of this research is wide. Job satisfaction has become vital component in the organization as it helps to attain the objectives of the company within time frame. There are various factors that influence the working environment of the workers adversely and being the cause of job attrition. The project will facilitate in developing the insights for the factors which affect the job satisfaction in Australian Tax Office. It will help to handle the situation in perfect manner so that employees of the public sector can be satisfied and provide the quality services to the Australians
Job satisfaction has been referred as an enjoyable emotional state out coming from the reward of one’s job. It is necessary for the company to satisfy the customers by providing various strategies such as motivation, rewards and recognition, appraisal and promotion. Public Sector Company is effective in comparison of private is the major debate topic which pretends to be a never ending topic. It is hard to determine that which one is provide better services to the customers because the way of working of both companies are different. From an employees’ point of view, job satisfaction is attractive result in itself. In the point of view of managerial effectiveness, job satisfaction is vital because of its turnover, absenteeism and effective behaviour like helping customers (Kumari and Pandey, 2011). It has been found that public sector is more divided in comparison of organized. As per Vratskikh, Al-Lozi and Maqableh, (2016), human resource has various governmental organizations performing under it to gather the data from. It might appear to be systematic and organized but eventually it becomes divided and makes concerns in the long run. The working system of public sectors is typical than private sector as the employee of public sector need to visible and accountable for each and every activities they do and show the transparency in their work. It has been analyzed Asegid, Belachew and Yimam, (2014), that the objective and aims of the public sector is more confusing which raise the major concern of job satisfaction among employees. They do not get better understanding about the performing job.
As per the case study of Australian Tax Office, it has been evaluated that everyday ATO links with a considerable number of Australians. The working criteria of employees over there are a systematic in comparison of other public sectors. It has been found that the ATO assisted more than 486,000 people in last year and answered more than 8 million telephone calls. The ATO has believed on information and communication technology to provide the efficient services to the Australians in which it spends $759 million on ICT (Terrey, 2012). There are major four functions managed by ATO called sub-plans. These sub-plans are covered the various roles of compliance, operations, corporate Services and Law and Enterprise Solutions and Technology. These sub-plans are handled by the staff of the ATO in and adequate manner and it has been evaluated that the workforce of ATO is decentralized with a presence in 46 sites across all states and territories.
The above mentioned image depicts that in 2012, 24,740 people worked with ATO and many more are connected with the organization in present. The employee satisfaction level in ATO office is high which can be seen in the example of 44 year old female employee who is working at the APS 6 level and in the auditing department. It has been found that she was hired for tax reform in 2000 and connected with the organization for approximately 15 years (Australian Government, 2013). It depicts that the job satisfaction at ATO is prior than any other factor which helps to connect with employees for the long period of time.
It has been analyzed that the job satisfaction is considered as an indicator of job quality which has been proposed by the European council in 2001(Kumari and Pandey, 2011). It has been analyzed from the study of Zaheer, Sharif, Yaqub and Baig, (2015), that there are various factors which may influence the employee satisfaction in public sector. Training, pay, working condition, relationship with worker, relationship with co-worker, nature of work, employees’ empowerment and turnover intention. These are the major factors are evaluated that may influence the Australian Tax Office’ employee in the context of job satisfaction (Hussain, Musarrat, Aleem, Hamed, 2012). Training is the major part of any organization whether it is public sector or private sector because it is the process that helps employees to learn about how to perform in an efficient manner in order to improve the efficiency of working. The legitimacy of the ATO draws its breadth from the ability of reacting to the needs of Australians in a way that is efficient in economically. It has been analyzed that there are major two questions arise in public sector performance that include the satisfaction of the citizens by providing services by the public sector and the in what finest way are public sector utilizing the resources under their removal. These questions are answered in an adequate way by applying the process of training which helps employees of ATO to work in a proper way by considering the need of Australians. Training process is the major factor that may affect the job satisfaction of public sector organization. It has been argued by Abbas, Mudassar, Gul, Madni (2013), that need assessment is vital for the organization to find out the performance gap for which training can be conducted. Lack of training for the specific areas may lead the organization into adverse situation and increase the job dissatisfaction among employees of ATO.
There is another factor of job satisfaction is pay. According to Dafe, (2009), the level of job satisfaction is influenced with the intensity of the rewards and promotion system. However, there are various policies in ATO to satisfy the employee from their performance in which ATO provides the incentives plan to the employee but the working criteria is difficult for the employees of this organization as they have to maintain the transparency and authenticity in their work and overload of customer satisfaction maintain the pressurize working environment. It has been found that ATO has small benefits and rewards system for its employee such as redeemable vouchers to staff as per ongoing scheme, $500 as a gift to the employee on the birth of his or her child, meals activities and fringe benefit taxes (Unisa, 2017). These are attractive factors for the job satisfaction but there should be different policies for employees to make them satisfied towards his performance. As per Kaynak, (2013), the success of public sector is entirely grateful to the encouraged employees who plays noteworthy role in this regard. The pay factor has significant role to make employees satisfied from their working and it can be amplified by increasing in allowances, pay and promotion. The compensation can be explained as the pay received by employee against provided services to the organization. The reward is considered as the vital component for the employee satisfaction.
Employee empowerment is the major factor that affects the job satisfaction because it is referred that to what extent employees are endorsed to make decisions in their daily decision making activities. It has been argued by Jackson & Mathis, (2008), that empowerment cannot be defined in one way because it entails the managerial executions and feelings of employees. It is majorly connected with the methods and techniques of organization like motivation, communication, training, employee participation and feedback which makes essential to evaluate the idea and management direction. It has been evaluated that ATO is not good to manage the individual performance involving poor performance. The performance management framework of ATO reflects that plans regarding corporate should be dropped in the organization to provide expectations for individual performance (Chardon, Freudenberg and Brimble, 2016). However, the efficiency of the performance management framework is dependent on the abilities and skills of individual managers. There are some areas in ATO organization that have different approach such as ‘tick and flick’ to performance appraisal. Employees have to face various problems because they are working in different locations which raise the issues of giving the feedback and mentoring advices to the direct supervisor.
It has been analyzed that the ATO is unable to find out the performance gap to improve the productivity of the employees due to different working style in different locations. There are many employees in the public sector that unable to forecast the potential benefits for their job satisfaction. It is vital for the public sector to recognize the situations in which staff of the organization can be re-skilled. It would be helpful to get ATO’s strategic needs through making satisfied the workers by performance management. It has been analyzed from the case study of ATO is that 22% of ATO respondents approved that the performance management of ATO is ineffective and dealt with under performance (Australian Government, 2013). In the case of underperformance, managers of ATO need to report that the intensity of support from the employees is contradictory and dependent on the individual case manager. It is required to give the proper time and efforts to reduce the impact of lack of performance management within the organization. It has been examined by Australian Government, (2013), that ATO allows taking a risk avoidance approach which unable to determine the various aspects in the organization. It is vital for the organization to improve the performance management which is critical aspect of the leadership and various strategies.
Relationship with co-workers is important factor as it helps to maintain the collaboration among employees. The vital aspects favorable to job satisfaction are equality in the working environment, supportive colleagues and working conditions and challenging work. Friendly environment within the organization is also liable to increase the job satisfaction. It has been found by Mboi, (2014), that environmental factors are integral aspects of job satisfaction. Kumari and Pandey, (2011), concluded that team working has an integral role to put impact on the satisfaction level of employees. It is crucial for the public sector to recognize the importance of these factors significantly for amplifying the satisfaction level of employees towards job. The ATO has a surplus of explained ways which support reliable delivery across an enormous, geographically dispersed workforce (Disselkamp, 2013). The ATO has well scripted way to deliver effective services to the customer that enables public sector to resolve the issues of customers and enhance the systematic structure of resolving the issues. This structure enhances the collaboration among employees. It has been suggested by Alsemeri, (2016) that the intensity of instruction is unable to give effective flexibility for staff to create the ability to implement judgment. It has been evaluated that the direction will need to create the effective culture in the organization. The disempowerment has shown by the staff and a manager of ATO which represents the need of greater risk management skills in case of responding to the calls from external interlocutors for more sensible moves in the direction.
It has been researched that the various factors have huge importance on the job satisfaction. These factors entail promotion, task clarity, opportunities, task clarity and pay. Carrera & Dunleavy, (2013), studied that work itself as the degree to which the organization provides the certain tasks to an individual know the ability of accomplishing the task, personal growth, chance for learning and the chance to be liable for outcomes. However, it has been concluded by Kumari and Pandey, (2011), that high level of job satisfaction may lead an employee towards high job performance which can increase the job stress. It has been analyzed from the case study of ATO that it delivers a huge ICT agenda with continuous pressure to meet the government essential and service delivery expectations. The ATO was effective agency that worked on the latest technology but it has been found that it has now dropped behind other agencies of public sectors (Australian Government, 2013). Internal as well as external stakeholders uttered frustration with the response of ICT and provided services. It has been analyzed that the frustrations in the context of internally exist with the currency of corporate procedures and latency in executing imperceptible changes. There are some examples of the ATO in the support of the reason of falling behind effective practices. These are the nonexistence of electronic records for the ATO corporate records. However, the tax records are managed by agency in an effective manner without showing any dullness in handling the records. There is another issue in the agency such as out of date intranet and hard to navigate. However, internal interlocutors identify the requirement to improve these issues and start to form part of an ICT back log in which an agency is under pressured to overcome.
Externally there is admiring for technology based program which has delivered by ATO in the past, but it has been evaluated that this kind of practices appear to have hindered. Devastatingly, it has been suggested by external feedback that technology services of the agency is not effective as it was before (Haas, 2010). That is why it is unable to provide the services as per the aligned expectations. It has been cleared from the above mentioned description about the ATO that there is a lack of job satisfaction within the agency that increase the lack of satisfaction of the customers. It has been evaluated that the internal demand is not covered by an agency to satisfy its employees. Moreover, there are no regulations proposed to make changes in the organization regarding safety and effective cultures. The review regarding internal and external frustration was given with a report commissioned by the ATO in which various recommendations on making improvements were done that will help to make better changes in managing internal demands.
Resource availability such as tools and equipment is the factor that entails the importance of job satisfaction within the organization. It has been stated by Stephen, (2010), that having the right equipment to do the correct job is a major aspect of how productive employees can remain in an organization for the long period. It has been found that it is not possible that each employees of the organization is having same skills to perform the task, there can be difference but with the right equipment or resources, an employee can perform the allocated task significantly. There is another approach of increasing the performance of the employees an appropriate manner that is adaption of latest technology. However, ATO has adopted latest technology to manage the record system of taxation but there is a lack of training and development program which being the cause of lack of job satisfaction among employees.
It is apparent that ATO has a firm focus on meeting commitments to government. It is liable for providing a range of proposals. The workforce of ATO is huge which provides high quality services to the Australians and make them realized that they should value the tax and superannuation system of Australia as community asset. Job satisfaction is vital component in public sector as numbers of citizens are dependent on the workers of public sector. In case of lack of job satisfaction in public sector would increase the imbalance in the economy of the country. It is necessary for the public sector to take care of the employees and provide them efficient services so that they can perform in an adequate manner (Zhu, Gospel & Benson, 2013).
Conclusion
The research has been conducted to find out the various factors of job satisfaction that may influence the public sector. There are several factors such as pay, employee empowerment, Relationship with co-workers and resource availability that have the wide role in public sector to reduce the job dissatisfaction. The literature review has been reflected the various factors by taking consideration of Australian Tax Office. The manager of the ATO need to be aware about the factors that being the cause of lack of job satisfaction because employees of public sector are liable to provide the quality services to the citizens. It is necessary for the ATO to analyze the different concepts and provide the latest technology with training and development program so that employees can understand the entire criteria of working. There should be proper rewards and recognition system within the organization that can work as motivator for the employees and increase the job satisfaction among employees of public sector.
Reference List
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