In this chapter, the results of an empirical case carried out in 2014 in a thermal centre in Spain are exposed. The aim of this study is to identify/evaluate current labour satisfaction of the employees to analyse strengths and weaknesses of the labour conditions that will allow the suggestion of some improvement actions to the managers and test whether the proposed scale based on the EFQM model is a valid measurement scale for measuring job satisfaction in organizations. A descriptive analysis was used as methodology, and a questionnaire was sent to 55 employees of the thermal centre with the aim to collect data; the response rate was of a 76.36%. The obtained results show that the employees are satisfied with the organizational climate, 4.09 points in average, and the measuring instrument was tested and validated. Furthermore, it shows areas with possibilities of improvement are training, internal communication, knowledge and identification of objectives, and organization and change management, on the other hand, the areas that need to improve are the work conditions, the perception of the executives and salary. The Originality this paper is detect the dimension's strengths and weaknesses of the labour.
TopIntroduction
Labour satisfaction of the employees with their job and their labour environment, called Organizational Climate, is a very important aspect that must be managed by the enterprises’ executives. It is defined as a number of features that determine a company, that differentiate it from others, and that affect in many cases the employees’ behavior, as well as their motivation or satisfaction. Several researches have shown that satisfaction affects productivity, level of absenteeism and employees’ rotation (Clegg 1983; Akerlof et al. 1988), aspects that also affect quality of a service that is provided to a client (Flynn 2005). Therefore, organizational climate is a key for a company’s success, and its regular analysis can help to improve those aspects where the organization is not so effective.
Considering all this, it is highly important to measure labour satisfaction in enterprises, because it helps to understand experiences or expectations of an employee that affect in an indirect way a client and, as a consequence, the quality of services that are provided to them. Therefore, measuring of satisfaction with job’s conditions allows to find out which aspects should be worked out to improve labour environment.
Taking into account all these points, the aim of this research is to determine the level of current labour satisfaction of the employees of a Thermal Centre1, so strengths and weaknesses of labour conditions can be analyzed, and it will allow to suggest some ways of improvement to the executives and determine whether the proposed scale based on the EFQM model is a valid measurement scale for measuring job satisfaction in organizations.
The chosen for this research Thermal Centre is managed with a quality management system (QMS) based on a standard UNE 186001:2009 (Thermal resorts) and UNE 182001:2008 (Tourist hotels and apartments), so it has a Q Mark for Tourist Quality. Therefore, we have decided to use a quality approach to analyse labour satisfaction, basing on a tool of the Total Quality Management (EFQM Model) that allows an enterprise to evaluate itself regarding 9 criteria, being human resources management and results on persons two of them. The first criterion, human resources management, evaluates the way an enterprise manages and use knowledge and potential of its employees, and the second one, results on persons, measures the results that have been got in relation to its staff. According to Robles-García et al. (2005, p.127), to measure these results, “it is necessary to have some measures of perception that could show aspects related to motivation and satisfaction. In short, measuring of organizational climate”. Definitively, this model is considered as very suitable for measuring the labor satisfaction as it includes all the aspects that in the literature are related to job satisfaction (working conditions, training, promotion and career development, recognition,remuneration, command-partner relationship, participation, organization and change management, work environment, communication, knowledge and identification with objectives and perception of direction).
To reach this objective, the article has been organized in five parts. After the introduction where the theme is set in a context and the objective is laid out, the second part develops a theoretical framework where a concept of labour satisfaction, the factors that form it and its consequences, relation between both satisfaction and quality and satisfaction and productivity, and the way to measure it are explained. Empirical research that allows us to achieve the article’s goal is set out in the third part. In the fourth one, the collected data are analysed, and finally the most important conclusions originated by this analysis are introduced.