Assessment of job design and job satisfaction among doctors and nurses in Lagos , Nigeria hospitals

This study examines the effect of job design on job satisfaction among Doctors and Nurses in selected hospitals. Data were collected from a sample size of 400 medical personnel (Nurses and Doctors) employed in four major medical centers in Lagos, Nigeria. Results from Pearson product moment correlation revealed that job design is associated with all dimensions of job satisfaction. In addition, the findings also revealed group differences among Doctors and Nurses on measures of job satisfaction. Finally, the study shows that job design alone may not explain all the variations in job satisfaction. This implies that other factors may contribute to employee job satisfaction. Research and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.


INTRODUCTION
The concept of job design and its effects on employees' job satisfaction is not a recent phenomenon in research (Hom and Kinicki, 2001;Lu and Lin 2002;Bernhard and Sverke, 2003).Jobs in any organization are designed following established procedures.These procedures were arranged or design by managers in the organization who are professionals or experts in any specific job type.The more these procedures saves time, effort, and improve output quality, the better for the organization and their employees as it increases employee job satisfaction, and reduces labour turnover in any organization.The medical profession is therefore not an exception.
Job design is a very important issue in human relations.After all, designing work so employees achieve a sense of task identity and task significant and are provided with skills variety, autonomy and feedback stimulate motivation and by extension, job satisfaction (Hodgetts and Hegar, 2005).
Job satisfaction is one of the most studied concepts in the social and behavioural sciences.Unfortunately, the numerous research literatures on the topic have not *Corresponding author.E-mail: akpoyomareo@yahoo.co.uk.Tel: 234-803-300-0522.
resolved some important and enduring questions that continue to puzzle the researchers and managers in a variety of organizations.
A full blown review of this literature is beyond the scope of this study, but the most theoretical and empirical work has been in business firms which differ fundamentally from non -profit organization and public agencies (Brewer and Lee, 2005).
Job satisfaction is defined as "the extent to which people like (satisfaction) or dislike (dissatisfaction) their jobs" (Spector, 1997).This definition suggests job satisfaction is a general or global affective reaction that individual holds about their job.Most scholars recognize that job satisfaction is a global concept comprised of various facets such as employee satisfaction with pay, supervisors, and co-workers (Judge et al., 2001;Rainey, 2003).
However, the question of what precedes what, between job satisfaction and performance; job satisfaction and organizational commitment; and job satisfaction and Organizational citizenship behaviour, helps to establish another long-running controversy in the literature.
Despite, the controversy, studies have established that job satisfaction is positively correlated with organizational commitment, job involvement, motivation, organizational citizenship behaviours, feedback environment, and job performance (Adebakin et al., 2008;Anseel and Lievens, 2007;Brewer and Lee, 2005).It is negatively related to turnover, absenteeism and perceived stress (Judge et al., 2001;Kreitner and Kinicki, 2001).
There are several research works on job design, job satisfaction, and other related phenomenon in recent times.These research works provide recent information as regards this study and related phenomenon.They also expose new concepts, innovations and development on this study.
For instance, Lu and Lin (2002) discovered that interrole conflict is associated with low job satisfaction and high propensity to leave.They also found that professsional commitment moderated the relationship between inter-role conflict and propensity to leave.Sauter et al. (1997) conducted a psychometric evaluation of the organizational job satisfaction scale.Their findings revealed that there are four dimensions of organizational job satisfaction scales, which includes pay, interaction, administration and status.They also found that job satisfaction leads to job enjoyment and correlate significantly with autonomy, stress and commitment.
In consonance with these findings is that of Blegen, (1993) where the concepts of autonomy, stress and commitment were associated most strongly with job satisfaction, representing both positive and negative associations.Andy and Mohammed (2006) discovered that there is a general decreasing trend in employee satisfaction from the period of December 1993 through to June 1998.Their findings also show that customers derive more satisfaction from the organization at the expense of employees.Barrows and Wesson (2001) carried out a research measuring the level of job satisfaction among public and private sector managers.They discovered that private sector managers are more satisfied than the public sector managers are.However, for several reasons, this conclusion requires extreme caution.First, there are many other factors, which influence job satisfaction levels.Second, this literature is based predominantly upon studies from Europe and America.There is however, lack of assurance on the validity of the construct used in those countries, noting that the work environment and industrial relations in those countries differ from what is obtainable here in Nigeria.
Studies have also revealed significant relationship between age, salaries and benefits, and job satisfaction (Kose 1985;St. Lifter, 1994).Gardner and Cummings (1988) show that job design had a significant relationship with the ages of employee, Duration, professional status, salary, employee level in the organization, and job satisfaction.However, these correlations are both positive and negative.
The general purpose of this study is to add store to the job satisfaction literature by establishing a relationship between job design and job satisfaction among Doctors Oghojaforand Adebakin 11703 and Nurses in selected hospitals in Lagos.This research also aims at providing the basis upon which management of organizations will establish job design policies to enhance satisfaction among employees.Specifically, the researcher proposed to test the following hypotheses: 1.) There is no significant relationship between job design and dimensions of employee job satisfaction.2.) Job design will not contribute more than 5% to job satisfaction among Doctors and Nurses.3.) There is no significant difference between groups on measures of job satisfaction.

METHODOLOGY Participants and procedure
Participants were registered Nurses and Doctors in selected hospitals in Lagos state, Nigeria.The four hospitals used in this study are; Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Eko Hospitals, Nusamin Medical Centre and Mezonel Clinic Limited.The medical centres were chosen among various medical centers in Lagos State because the researcher considers it a good representation of hospitals in Lagos.These Nurses and Doctors consist of males (49.7%) and females (50.3%) with diverse demographic characteristics such as age, marital status and years of experience.In addition, study participation was voluntary and respondents' anonymity was preserved.Four hundred participants filled out the questionnaire.Almost 42% of the respondents (n=167) were Doctors while 58% were Nurses.Indeed nearly, three quarters (73.1%) of the respondents were above the age of 29 years while more than half (66.4%) of the respondents had been employed continuously for over five years.The subjects of this study operated within Lagos and its environs.Table 1 provides a summary of the demographic profile of the respondents.

Measures
This study focuses predominantly on two variables and questionnaires were used as a measure of all the variables.The questionnaire was designed to capture socio-demographic and affective responses.Details of the respondents' background were sought in terms of gender, age, marital status and work experience.

Job design
This was measured using the 10 item instrument designed by Slocum (1996).The instrument measure how organic or mechanistic an organization is.For example, one item on the subscale was "All decision in my organization must be reviewed and approved by upper level management". .The Chrobach's alpha for this variable is .60.

Job satisfaction
This was measured using a 27 item instrument designed by Sauter et al. (1997).It was used to measure the level of satisfaction employees derive from their job.The Chronbach's alpha for this variable is 74.Four extrinsic dimensions of satisfaction were are not quickly made to feel at home in my unit" was included on this subscale.The reliability coefficient is .71Items on the instruments were rated on a 6 point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 6 (strongly disagree) with no neutral response included.
An arithmetic mean and standard deviation were obtained for each of the dimensions of job satisfaction as well as other important variables in the study (Table 2).A range of statistical procedures was undertaken in the analysis of the study data using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).First, the study established the reliabilities of all the measures with Cronbach's (1951) alpha.Secondly, the study used frequency plots to determine the sample profile.Thirdly, correlation analyses and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) procedures were employed to test the hypotheses.

RESULTS
Table 2 reports the mean and standard deviation scores for all the variables in the study (including the demographic variables) as well as the correlation matrix for job design and all the four dimensions of job satisfaction (pay and reward, professional status, interaction and cohesion, and administration).Measure of job design has a mean score of 44.6 and a standard deviation of 5.8.The mean score and standard deviation of pay and reward are 24.7 and 4.8, respectively.Professional status has a mean score and standard deviation of 26.8 and 4.4, respectively.Interaction and cohesion has a mean score and standard deviation of 24.7 and 4.7, respectively.Frequency for Administration has a mean score and standard deviation of 22.8 and 4.5, respectively.Frequency for Gender has a mean score and standard deviation of 1.5 and 0.5, respectively.Frequency for Age has a means score and standard deviation of 3.3 and 1.1, respectively.Frequency for marital status has a mean score and standard deviation of 1.8 and 0.7, respectively.Frequency for work experience has a mean score of 2.9 and a standard deviation of 1.0.
The Table also reveals significant relationship between job design and all dimensions of job satisfaction.Hence, hypothesis 1 was rejected.
Nevertheless, the contribution of job design to job satisfaction is represented in Table 3 with a regression summary.It reveals that job design contributes just 5% to job satisfaction.Hence, hypothesis 2 was accepted.
Table 4 is a summary of the analysis of variance to test significant differences between groups on measures of job satisfaction (p<.05).

DISCUSSION
The focus of this study is to establish the extent of relationship between job design and job satisfaction.It also investigates whether significant differences exist between groups on measures of job satisfaction.
The result of this study confirms the findings of Charles et al. (1982) in which significant relationship exist between job design and job satisfaction.However, indications from the findings show that job design, though correlates positively with all dimensions of job satisfaction, the contribution of the former on the latter is not more than 5%.This finding could be due to differences in working conditions and other environmental factors.
This does not imply that job design does not affect or influence job satisfaction because actually, poor job design will undoubtedly bring about dissatisfaction (Taylor, 2004).The fact that the survey findings indicate a weak relationship between the two variables is evidence that the relationship is also capable of being strong (all things being equal).

CONCLUSION
Job design is not, in all cases a major determinant of job satisfaction as in the case of the four medical hospitals in this survey.In the case of these hospitals, the degree to which job design influences job satisfaction seems to be minimal but this does not imply that job design cannot influence job satisfaction to a higher extent.
The fact that this degree is quite small is a proof that certain extraneous variables not controllable by the research have had significant influence on the relatioship between the variables under study.Such extraneous variables may include mode of interaction and group cohesion at work, company policies, inter-role conflict and demographic variables.
The effect of job design on job satisfaction should never be underestimated.Any attempt to assume that job design is irrelevant to productivity and performance is hazardous to the good name and long term survival of any organization because absenteeism, high turnover of labor and low performance will each take its toll on the organization.
The conclusion therefore, is that job design is not a major determinant of job satisfaction.Other extraneous variables may also account for job satisfaction.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the findings of this survey, the researcher recommends that: 1) Jobs in organizations should be redesigned constantly and consistently to meet changing needs of workers as well as changes in the work environment.2) Organizations should therefore take job design very seriously because it is one of the most potent forms of incentive, which could trigger workers' motivation and satisfaction.
3) Despite the achievements of this research effort, there shall always be need to conduct further researches on similar issues both as a means of certifying the validity and reliability of the present research, and to explore further and uncover more facts.4) Although, this study is an addition to existing literatures on job design and job satisfaction, more researches need to be conducted especially in other manufacturing or service organizations outside the medical field where job design may prove to be the major determinants of job satisfaction.
*The sum of the frequencies may not be the same as sample size because of missing scores

Table 2 .
Mean, standard deviation and correlation matrix of all variables in the study (N= 400).
staff.Items concerning how the staff is included in decision-making and how much administration cares about their employees were contained in the subscale.Example of item included was "there is ample opportunities for nursing staff to participate in the administrative decision making process".The variable has a reliability coefficient of .65. 4) Interaction/Cohesion: This measures how well Nurses and Doctors work together and get along.Item such as "new employees

Table 4 .
Analysis of variance on measures of job satisfaction.ANOVA.