This final chapter consists of the conclusions of the study; secondly it offers the implications for the organization. Lastly this chapter outlines the limitations and suggestions for future research.
Conclusions
The main purpose of this study was to analyze the effect training and development, compensation and job stress has on key job attitudes such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Therefore this study highlights the importance of these three factors and their effect on organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Due to the changing organizational environment organizations are facing nowadays, organizations need to focus in these key job attitudes, which will result in positive outcomes for the organizations and the employees. This study focused on the employees of the largest bank in Honduras. The researcher specially took interest in this industry, due to the fact that this sector has a great influence in the Honduran economy, despite the recession.
According to the results of this study, training and development compensation and job stress were associated with job satisfaction. Job Satisfaction was also found to have a mediator effect between these three factors and organizational commitment.
The first factor was training and development, which was found to be positively related to job satisfaction. In other words, when employees are motivated about training, when they feel support of training from managers and colleagues, when they feel positive about the training benefits, the more likely they will be satisfied with their job. Once they feel satisfied about their job, they will feel committed and show a better performance, thus it will benefit them and the entire organization.
In the same way compensation was found to be positively related to job satisfaction, indicating that when employees are satisfied about their salaries, pay level, and benefits, the more likely the employees will feel satisfied about their job.
The other factor is job stress, which was found to be negatively significantly to job satisfaction, this indicates that the higher the job stress they experience, the less satisfied they
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will feel about their job, which can have an impact in their level of commitment, performance and productivity.
In addition, job satisfaction was also found to be significantly related to organizational commitment, this indicates that the more satisfied the employees feel about their job the more emotionally attached they will feel with the organization, also employees will be more likely to remain loyal to the organization.
Lastly, the three independent variables were found to have an effect on organizational commitment, however, job satisfaction influence this relationship even more.
Implications
The results from this study offer important information for the HR practitioners and managers from the banking industry in Honduras and specifically to Banco Atlàntida. They can use this analysis as a tool to understand the real situation of the employees. This information will serve as a guideline to improve employees‘ job satisfaction and commitment. Following are some implications:
Implications for Training and Development
Training and Development has a significance influence in the satisfaction and commitment level of individuals, therefore, human resource professionals should establish a positive attitude towards training, the organization can achieve this by providing constant adequate training and encouraging employees to participate on it. This will as a result improve employee‘s attitude towards training. Employee will appreciate the organization‘s effort to provide training. Through training employees will improve their skills and be up to date with the changing work environment, thus employees will be more motivated, satisfied and increase their productivity.
Human resource professionals and managers should also emphasize the benefits of the trainings to the employees. Once employees are aware of the benefits of training they will be more motivated and more willing to participate on trainings.
Lastly, human resource professionals and managers, especially in this organization, should create an environment where colleagues and managers are supportive to each other‘s efforts to acquired new knowledge, or provide training help to others when need it.
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Implications for Compensation
Compensation also plays a significant influence in the satisfaction of employees. Pay, especially has a great influence in their satisfaction, it is important for organizations to fairly pay the necessary salaries to their employees so they can cover their own financial needs. This will result as having more satisfied and emotional attached employees, and as a result it will increase their productivity and performance. Some employees expressed in the questionnaire that they have not had raises in the past years. Thus, this organization should focus on properly designing an incentive plan for the employees. A well-managed compensation system will create other benefits for the organization, like the reduction of turnover levels and absenteeism. Employees will also feel a stronger desire to continue working in the organization.
Implications for Job Stress
The last factor is job stress, which it was found to be negatively significant to job satisfaction, organizations should give special attention to this factor. This organization had a low mean score for this factor, therefore special attention should be given in order to reduce the job stress of the employees. The human resource professionals and managers should provide clear information to their subordinates regarding work role requirements. In additions they should also set clear responsibilities to their subordinates and to whom they should report the results, in order to reduce work conflict. When employees have to fulfill their own responsibilities and are given other extra demands from their superiors or co-workers can create confusion and conflict leading to employees being unsatisfied about their job. The work stress really affects employee‘s attitudes towards their job; it will result in unsatisfied employees, low performance and decrease productivity.
Implications for Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction was found to be positively significant to organizational commitment coinciding with various previous studies. By having satisfied employees, organizations are more likely to have committed employees; having committed employees will result in fewer turnovers, less absenteeism, and increase productivity. In order to achieve this, organizations should make the job more interesting and make employees responsible, so that they feel motivated just simply to perform their job. Organizations should also let the employees know how their job has an
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impact and is important to the entire organization, customers, and society. In this way employees will enjoy their job and find that their job is meaningful to the organization and customers.
In addition, when employees are knowledgeable about the actual results of their job it also leads to increase productivity. By knowing how are they doing, they can make adjustments and improve their job. Thus, this is why the feedback should be immediate rather than later.
It is also very important that the skills and knowledge matches with the demands and activities they have to perform, otherwise it will result in stressed, frustrated and unsatisfied employees. Especially those employees who want to perform well, but lack the competences and skills to do so, they will feel stress and frustration. Thus, human resource professionals should appraise the competences of the employees whose jobs are to be improved. Through training and development programs organizations can help employees to reach the required competences.
However, some dimensions for job satisfaction mentioned above can be applied depending of the nature of the job, for simple types of jobs only some dimensions can be applied, like task significance, and increase feedback. Some jobs might have limited job autonomy however; human resource professionals and managers can help employees recognize the importance of their positions. For job positions that are more complex, job autonomy and skills variety can be also implemented.
Implications for Organizational Commitment
Lastly the dependent variable, organizational commitment, organizations particularly should give special attention to affective commitment, since is the most desired type of commitment for both the organization and the employees. As mentioned before this type of commitment can be achieved when employees have positive experiences within the organization, and when they are satisfied about their job. Employees also feel more attached to the organization when the organization values and support them. The more attached employees are with the organization, the more loyal the employees will be, and the more willing to put extra efforts for the benefit of the organization.
In the other hand, continuance commitment is the least desire type of commitment by organizations (Wahn, 1993). In this study many employees felt that their life would be disrupted if they leave the organization. When employees remain in the organization because they need to,
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or because they lack of other alternatives, they might perform poorly and won‘t be as productive as if they were emotionally attached to the organization.
This Bank should pay special attention to normative commitment. Organizations can focus in this type of commitment by transmitting employees the importance of loyalty. This can be achieved through training and organizational culture. Once employees value loyalty, they will not feel the need to leave the organization.
In conclusion, since training and development, compensation and job stress are found to be important factors for job satisfaction and organizational commitment. These factors should all be subject of interest not only to Banco Atlántida but also to other organizations.
Research Limitations
As mentioned in chapter 1, this study only includes employees from one specific financial institution, Banco Atlántida. Also due to the time and access to the sample, this study only focuses on those employees of the branches located in the Atlantic area. Since it only focuses in this specific organization and location, the results can be applied only to similar contexts, though it should be limited.
Secondly, due to the fact that the researcher relied on the HR manager to distribute and collect the questionnaires, the researcher did not have control over the random selection of participants.
Lastly, this study follow the quantitative approach, the data was collected by using only a self- reported questionnaire, which may have some bias by the respondents, thus affecting the results. The researcher can also adopt the interview and observation methods for future research.
In the case of interviews it would allow the researcher to obtain more in-depth information of the employee‘s situations.
Suggestions for Future Research
Since this study is delimited to one geographical area: Honduras, and to a specific organization. It is possible that the findings of this study are dependent to this context. Therefore this study can be also implemented in another country and in another organization. This study can also be applied to a bigger sample, instead of focusing in a specific area of the country.
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Secondly, this study focused on employees that work at different levels, making no differentiation among organizational levels. However, for future research it can also focus in more specific positions.
Finally, based on the literature review and interest of the researcher, this study focused on three factors affecting job satisfaction and organizational commitment. These three factors may not be the only ones or the most important predictors for job satisfaction and organizational commitment. For future research other factors can also be subject of study. Also other mediators other than job satisfaction can be tested. Based on literature other factors could be, working environment, organizational culture, leadership style, age and tenure.
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