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Job satisfaction research

By Roman Duda · Last updated August 2014 · First published August 2014

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On this page:

• 1.1 How robust are these findings?
• 2.1 1. Engaging work
• 2.2 2. Work that helps others
• 2.3 3. Work you’re good at
• 2.4 4. Work with people you like
• 2.5 5. Meets your basic needs
• 3.2 Low demands
• 3.3 Interests match
• 3.4 Signature strengths match
• 3.5 Occupational status
• 4 Directions for future research

Last updated: March 2016.

Table of Contents

Research process

To survey the literature, we familiarised ourselves with the latest work on positive psychology by reading all of ‘ Flourish ‘ and ‘ Learned Optimism ‘ by Seligman, ‘ Stumbling on Happiness ‘ by Gilbert, ‘ Drive ‘ by Pink, and several review papers. We also did a Google Scholar search for relevant terms, read two textbooks on organisational psychology (‘ Work Psychology ‘ by Arnold and Randall, and ‘The Handbook Principles of Organisational Behaviour’ by Locke (find a copy in this folder )), and two summaries of the job satisfaction literature in the OSH wiki.

We weighed the messages of the literature against our impression of common sense, placing more weight on meta-analyses and consensus positions among psychologists. For more on our general research process, see our research principles .

How robust are these findings?

There appears to be broad consensus that the job characteristics model is a good predictor of job satisfaction. The other factors in our list don’t have as wide consensus, but this page reflects our current synthesis of the evidence that we’ve read. With further research we can imagine adding or subtracting a factor or changing a factor’s relative importance. For example, we previously put less weight on personal fit as important for job satisfaction.

Predictors of job satisfaction

To find out what the predictors of job satisfaction are, we started by looking at general theories of life satisfaction and human needs. We then investigated how these general predictors translate into the world of work and combined this with research that directly focuses on job satisfaction, to come up with six key factors for fulfilling work.

The PERMA theory, created by the founder of positive psychology Prof. Seligman, summarises the key ingredients of living a fulfilling life as follows:

• Positive emotion – feeling happy day-to-day.
• Engagement – challenging, absorbing tasks.
• Meaning – having a purpose higher than yourself.
• Relationships – connecting with others.
• Achievement – being good at something.

It isn’t consensus that these factors constitute well-being, but it is widely agreed that they are important determinants of well-being.

You can read more about PERMA in the book Flourish .

Self-determination theory claims there are three fundemental parts to human well-being:

• Competence – experiencing control and mastery
• Relatedness – connecting with others
• Autonomy – having choice and control

We now outline each factor and the main evidence for each.

1. Engaging work

The job characteristics model claims that job satisfaction is largely determined by how engaging the job itself is. The model breaks engagingness into five main variables: variety, sense of completion, autonomy, feedback from the content of the work, and sense of contribution. Note that the last factor is essentially ‘do you think you’re making a difference?’, and we cover it separately in the next section.

The job characteristics model has been studied extensively, including by several meta-analyses. 1 The most recent meta-analysis of 259 studies showed that each of the five characteristics correlates with job satisfaction (mean p=0.41).7 It’s widely thought to be the best single predictor of job satisfaction. For instance, in the Handbook of Principles of Organisational Behaviour, Judge and Klinger claim: 2

There are many possible influences on how favorable one appraises one’s job, and numerous theories of job satisfaction have attempted to delineate these influences. Empirical evidence, however, has suggested only one clear attribute of the work itself that consistently influences job satisfaction – the cognitive challenge of the work. The empirical data suggest that intrinsic job characteristics are the mostly consistently significant situational predictor of job satisfaction.

The effect of job characteristics on job satisfaction has been found to be moderated by an individual’s need for growth. A meta-analysis found that Growth Need Strength (GNS) moderated the relationship between the five job characteristics and job satisfaction. For those with high GNS the relationship was on average r=. 57, whereas for those with low GNS the relationship was on average r = .32. Note that even this is still a moderate relationship. 3

There’s also some indirect support for engaging work being important for job satisfaction. Employee surveys of job satisfaction have shown that “interesting work” turns out to be what’s most important to people, as opposed to pay or status. 4 Also, sense of completion and feedback are similar to the conditions needed to enter a state of flow – the pleasurable state of being so immersed in an activity that you’re completely free of distractions and lose track of time. Csikszentmihalyi has argued that being able to enter states of flow is key to having genuinely satisfying experiences, so we’d expect this link. 5

You could challenge the evidence for the job characteristics model by coming up with alternative hypotheses to explain the correlation between job characteristics and job satisfaction. For example, mood could be a third variable that explains the correlation. If you are in a good mood that might cause you to rate your job satisfaction as high, but also to rate your job highly on the five characteristics of the model (as is suggested by Judge & Klinger 2009). 6 Or you might think that the causal relationship actually works in reverse (as was suggested in Caldwell (1982) — high job satisfaction causes you to rate your job highly on the five characteristics in the model. 7

However studies that use objective measures of job characteristics still find a correlation between the five job characteristics and job satisfaction (Glick, Jenkins, and Gupta, 1986; Judge, Bono, and Locke, 2000), so these alternative explanations don’t seem to hold. 8

The more general worry that the evidence is correlational does reduce our confidence in the job characteristic model. Nevertheless, the model is grounded in well-supported theories of motivation and well-being; it provides causal explanations of how the factors lead to job satisfaction; and it has been subject to a high degree of scrutiny for several decades — so if there were obvious confounders or problems with it, it is likely that these would have been uncovered by now.

2. Work that helps others

We’d expect that helping others in your job would increase your sense of meaning and purpose, and there’s a fair amount of empirical evidence that helping others in your job increases job satisfaction.

Theoretical evidence If you help others through your job, you’re likely to experience a greater sense of meaning and purpose. Meaning and purpose is one of the components of Seligman’s theory of well-being PERMA as we saw above. 9

Correlational evidence As mentioned in the previous section, the job characteristics model is widely agreed to be the best predictor of job satisfaction. One of the factors in the model is task significance – the degree to which your job affects other people’s lives. It is measured using this question:

The empirical evidence shows that high task significance is one of the best predictors of job satisfaction. The meta-analysis we mentioned previously found that task significance is strongly correlated with job satisfaction (p=0.41 10 ).

Another finding which you’d expect if helping others through your work increases your job satisfaction is that jobs which involve helping others would do well in job satisfaction rankings. Jobs that involve helping others do in fact score very well on job satisfaction rankings, as was found in the General Social Surveys conducted in the US from 1972-2006 (with 50,313 respondents): 11

If we move to the broader relationship between helping others (whether through your job or not) and well-being, Post (2005) overviews a wide range of studies which find a correlation between altruism and well-being. 12 He also gives plausible causal mechanisms through which altruism could lead to increased happiness:

Altruism results in deeper and more positive social integration, distraction from personal problems and the anxiety of self-preoccupation, enhanced meaning and purpose as related to well-being, a more active lifestyle that counters cultural pressures toward isolated passivity, and the presence of positive emotions such as kindness that displace harmful negative emotional states. It is entirely plausible, then, to assert that altruism enhances mental and physical health.

Experimental evidence There is evidence from randomized controlled trials that performing acts of kindness increases your happiness. 13 If there’s a causal relationship between performing acts of kindness and being happier, you might also expect that there is a causal relationship between helping others through your job and increased happiness and job satisfaction.

3. Work you’re good at

We expect that being good at your job leads to higher job satisfaction. There is a fair amount of theoretical support for the claim that being good at your job will lead to higher job satisfaction. Most theories of human well-being and needs have achievement as a key component (including Self-Determination Theory and PERMA ). The job characteristics model also has knowledge and skills as a moderator of the effect of job characteristics on job satisfaction. 14

Also, believing that you are able to do well in a job is associated with higher motivation, whilst not having the knowledge and skills to do your job well is likely to lead to stress. 15

This is confirmed by an analysis of 2,460 individuals which found a strong negative relationship between skill mismatch and job satisfaction. 16

Finally, that being good at your job is important for job satisfaction is also the common sense view, and it is highly intuitive.

4. Work with people you like

Like having a sense of meaning and achievement, satisfying personal relationships are also a key component for a fully satisfying life in almost every theory of human needs and well-being (such as Self-Determination Theory and PERMA ). Therefore we would expect social support and liking your colleagues to lead to job satisfaction. This is also confirmed by empirical research.

A meta-analysis of 259 studies found that social support was strongly positively correlated with job satisfaction (p=.56). 17 Social support is the extent to which a job provides opportunities for getting help and advice from others and the opportunities to make friends on the job.

(Update: Another meta-analysis found several measures of ‘organizational sponsorship’, such as being given supervisor support and training opportunities, were among the best predictors of career satisfaction of those studied, though interestingly, were weaker predictors of income and chance of promotion.)

One note is that people vary in who they like, so this factor of job satisfaction will mean different jobs are better for different people. One well-studied effect is that your degree of similarity with someone – the more similar you are (on almost any dimension — physical appearance, attitudes, personality, interpersonal style, cultural background) the more likely you are to like them. 18

5. Meets your basic needs

1. Reasonable hours Very long working hours crowd out your ability to take care of your non-work life, which could make you less happy, and make you more likely to perceive your job as conflicting with your other goals and needs. Not being able to meet your non-work obligations is also likely to lead to stress. This claim receives some support from two large surveys. The British Household Panel Survey, of roughly 10,000 individuals, found that long hours were associated with lower job satisfaction. 19 Another survey of 28,240 individuals found the same. 20

2. Job security Lacking job security is likely to lead to greater stress as it is likely to decrease people’s confidence in being able to meet the demands of their lives. There is also theoretical support for this: job security is posited to be a moderator of the effect of job characteristics on job satisfaction by the job characteristics model. 21 Also, a meta-analysis of 50 independent samples representing 28,885 individuals, found a strong negative correlation between job insecurity and job satisfaction (r=-.41). 22

3. Short commute We would expect a long commute to be detrimental to life satisfaction for the same reasons as long hours are, and in addition, long commutes tend to be unpleasant in themselves and hard to use productively. This claim is supported by a study by the UK Office for National Statistics (sample size = 60,200 individuals) which found that long commutes were associated with lower life satisfaction. The worst effects were associated with journey times lasting between 61 and 90 minutes. Also taking a bus or coach was found to be the worst mode of transport for commuting. 23

4. Fair pay Earning less than others doing the same or similar job seems to cause job dissatisfaction and lower happiness. This makes sense given that it’s likely to make you feel unfairly treated and possibly resent your employer.

This has been confirmed in correlational studies (Clark and Oswald, 1996; Hamermesh, 2001 for job dissatisfaction, Frey and Stutzer, 2002; Luttmer, 2005 for happiness). 24

You might worry about other potential explanations for the correlation. But a clever experimental design was used to control for confounding variables. It randomly assigned people to either be able to find out what their peers earn, or not (the control group). Those who were able to find out what their peers earned and found out that they earned less than their peers reported less job satisfaction and had higher intentions to leave their jobs than those in the control group. 25

Other factors we considered but that are poor predictors of job satisfaction

In general, the salary of a job has only a weak effect on job satisfaction and happiness – see our review of the evidence .

Low demands

Moderate levels of stress are associated with higher job satisfaction. See our review of the evidence on the effects work demands and stress .

Interests match

• There is lack of empirical evidence for interest-match, with a major attempt to find one (Holland-match). See our review of the evidence on the importance of Holland type match with occupation and job satisfaction .

Our interests change, and more than we expect .

• Most people are likely to be interested in highly competitive areas with very few jobs, like sports, music or entertainment. See our page on why “follow your passion” isn’t helpful advice for having a satisfying career .

Signature strengths match

Another predictor we considered but didn’t end up recommending is finding a job which is matched to your unique signature strengths (a test created by Seligman and his colleague Peterson). From the evidence so far, it doesn’t seem that using signature strengths for choosing between jobs is useful. But it does seem that once you’re in a job, finding ways to use your signature strengths more does increase your happiness. See our review of the literature for more .

Occupational status

It is common sense that occupational status is something that matters. There’s some empirical evidence that it is correlated with job satisfaction (for example in the General Social Surveys conducted in the US. 26

However we didn’t include it in our list of factors because:

• The correlation is easily confounded by other variables such as the five factors of the job characteristics model, social support, etc, all of which have better empirical support.
• We don’t expect people to neglect this factor due to the strong social incentives to select jobs with higher status.

Directions for future research

In the future we would like to find out more about the base rates of job satisfaction in different jobs, whether the Big Five personality factors are helpful for finding a career that’s satisfying and investigate how large a difference individual factors, such as how good you are a job, make to job satisfaction.

Notes and references

A meta-analysis of the relation of job characteristics to job satisfaction. Loher, Brian T.; Noe, Raymond A.; Moeller, Nancy L.; Fitzgerald, Michael P. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 70(2), May 1985, 280-289. Meta-analytic comparison of the Job Diagnostic Survey and Job Characteristics Inventory as correlates of work satisfaction and performance. Fried, Yitzhak Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 76(5), Oct 1991, 690-697. Integrating motivational, social, and contextual work design features: A meta-analytic summary and theoretical extension of the work design literature. Humphrey, Stephen E.; Nahrgang, Jennifer D.; Morgeson, Frederick P. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 92(5), Sep 2007, 1332-1356. ↩

• Judge, T. A., Klinger, R. (2009). Promote Job Satisfaction through Mental Challenge. Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behaviour, Second Ed, pp107-119 ↩
• Fried, Yitzhak, and Gerald R. Ferris. “The validity of the job characteristics model: A review and meta‐analysis.” Personnel Psychology 40.2 (1987): 287-322. Judge, Timothy A., and Ryan Klinger. “Promote job satisfaction through mental challenge.” Handbook of principles of organizational behavior (2000): 75-89. p115 ↩
• For instance, Judge, T. A., Church, A. H. (2000) “Job satisfaction: research and practice”. In C. L. Cooper and E. A. Locke (eds), Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Linking Theory with Practice (pp. 167-174). Oxford, UK: Blackwell ↩
• Csikszentmihalyi, M.; Abuhamdeh, S. & Nakamura, J. (2005), “Flow”, in Elliot, A., Handbook of Competence and Motivation, New York: The Guilford Press, pp. 598–698 Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1988), “The flow experience and its significance for human psychology”, in Csikszentmihalyi, M., Optimal experience: psychological studies of flow in consciousness, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 15–35. ↩
• Caldwell, David F., and Charles A. O’Reilly. “Task perceptions and job satisfaction: A question of causality.” Journal of Applied Psychology 67.3 (1982): 361. ↩
• Glick, W. H., Jenkins, G. D., Jr., and Gupta, N. (1986). Method versus substance: How strong are underlying relationships between job characteristics and attitudinal out- comes? Academy of Management Journal, 29, 441–464. Judge, T. A., Bono, J. E., and Locke, E. A. (2000). Personality and job satisfaction: The mediating role of job characteristics. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 237–249. ↩
• Seligman, Martin EP. Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. Simon and Schuster, 2012. ↩
• “p” refers to the corrected population correlation estimate ↩
• Job satisfaction in the United States (2007). ↩
• Post, Stephen G. “Altruism, happiness, and health: It’s good to be good.”International journal of behavioral medicine 12.2 (2005): 66-77. ↩
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• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_attraction#Similarity_attraction_effect ↩
• Clark, Andrew, Andrew Oswald, and Peter Warr. “Is job satisfaction U‐shaped in age?.” Journal of occupational and organizational psychology 69.1 (1996): 57-81. Page 66. The correlation was of log hours and job satisfaction was -0.19. For comparison, log income had a -0.07 correlation with job satisfaction. ↩
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Teachers’ job satisfaction and perceptions of working conditions in an urban emergent school district

• Published: 25 June 2024

Cite this article

• John A. Williams III   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8561-468X 1 ,
• Andrew Kwok 1 &
• Megan Svjada-Hardy 1  

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The learning environment for students is affected by factors inside and outside of the classroom. Research denotes the relationship between students’ learning environment and teachers’ satisfaction with their job. Job satisfaction for teachers consists of several interpersonal, classroom, and school factors known as teacher working conditions (TWCs). Few studies attempt to understand TWCs and job satisfaction for teachers in an urban school district; which is of particular importance as approximately 20% of teachers in the U.S. instruct in urban environments. This study analyzes teacher responses from an annual TWCs survey through a principal component analysis and hierarchical multiple regression. Results indicate that teachers’ satisfaction with campus school culture and ratings of campus behavioral response were positively associated with job satisfaction. As learning environments across the U.S. continue to require highly qualified teachers, this research underscores how one urban school district was able to retain teachers and keep their teachers satisfied with their job. This study contributes an initial conceptualization of urban TWCs and the importance of school administrators’ addressing of these to maintain high job satisfaction.

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Williams III, J.A., Kwok, A. & Svjada-Hardy, M. Teachers’ job satisfaction and perceptions of working conditions in an urban emergent school district. Learning Environ Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-024-09506-z

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Job Satisfaction

A critical, understudied facet of workforce development in public health.

Harper, Elizabeth DrPH; Castrucci, Brian C. MA; Bharthapudi, Kiran PhD; Sellers, Katie DrPH, CPH

Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, Arlington, Virginia (Drs Harper, Bharthapudi, and Sellers); and de Beaumont Foundation, Bethesda, Maryland (Mr Castrucci).

Correspondence: Elizabeth Harper, DrPH, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, 2231 Crystal Dr, Ste 450, Arlington, VA 22202 ( [email protected] ).

Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS) was funded by the de Beaumont Foundation. The de Beaumont Foundation and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials acknowledge Brenda Joly, Carolyn Leep, Vicki Pineau, Lin Liu, Michael Meit, the PH WINS technical expert panel, and state and local health department staff for their contributions to the PH WINS.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License, where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially.

Context: 

The field of public health faces multiple challenges in its efforts to recruit and retain a robust workforce. Public health departments offer salaries that are lower than the private sector, and government bureaucracy can be a deterrent for those seeking to make a difference.

Objective: 

The objective of this research was to explore the relationship between general employee satisfaction and specific characteristics of the job and the health agency and to make recommendations regarding what health agencies can do to support recruitment and retention.

Design: 

This is a cross-sectional study using data collected from the 2014 Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS). A nationally representative sample was constructed from 5 geographic (paired adjacent HHS [US Department of Health and Human Services]) regions and stratified by population and state governance type. Descriptive and inferential statistics were analyzed using the balanced repeated replication method to account for the complex sampling design. A multivariate linear regression was used to examine job satisfaction and factors related to supervisory and organizational support adjusting for relevant covariates.

Setting and Participants: 

PH WINS data were collected from state health agency central office employees using an online survey.

Main Outcome Measure: 

Level of job satisfaction using the Job in General Scale (abridged).

Results: 

State health agency central office staff (n = 10 246) participated in the survey (response rate 46%). Characteristics related to supervisory and organizational support were highly associated with increased job satisfaction. Supervisory status, race, organization size, and agency tenure were also associated with job satisfaction.

Conclusions: 

Public health leaders aiming to improve levels of job satisfaction should focus on workforce development and training efforts as well as adequate supervisory support, especially for new hires and nonsupervisors.

This article explores the relationship between general employee satisfaction and specific characteristics of the job and the health agency and provides recommendations regarding what health agencies can do to support recruitment and retention.

Since 2008, many state and local health agencies have experienced resource reductions and 91% of all state health agencies (SHAs) have experienced job losses due to attrition, contributing to a decreased public health workforce. 1–5 While the exact number of these losses is unknown, the pattern is well established. 6–8 This decrease in funding is especially troubling, considering that increased public health spending has been positively associated with improved health outcomes and decreased preventable deaths. 9 Furthermore, with the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a number of states are undergoing Medicaid expansion that may further the importance of public health agencies being ready to provide increased services with fewer staff. 10 , 11

It is critical in this time of budget constraints that the public health system recruit and retain a high-quality, skilled workforce. 6 , 12 High workforce turnover can be detrimental to an organization's economic health. In a study by Merck and Company, it is estimated that replacing an employee costs 150% of the individual's annual salary and benefits package. 13 New employees take extra time and resources to onboard, train, relocate, and recruit. In many cases, it is more useful to retain experienced employees with a high level of institutional knowledge. In fact, several studies from service-driven organizations suggest that while turnover may bring diversity to an organization, those with a stable, experienced workforce outperform those with high levels of employee turnover. 13–16

According to Sellers et al, 17 42% of the current SHA workforce are considering leaving their organization in the next year or are planning to retire by 2020. About 4% of staff are considering leaving their organization in the next year for another position in governmental public health. To retain the best and most essential staff, it is critical to examine the factors associated with attrition. A strong predictor of whether employees leave their organizations is their level of job satisfaction. Studies have shown that workers with high levels of job satisfaction stay at their organizations longer, are more productive and motivated, and have less absenteeism, greater organizational commitment, and higher levels of engagement. 15 , 18 , 19 Job satisfaction studies have been conducted for decades among the private sector, medical and education communities, social workers, and many others. However, there is little research or evidence exploring job satisfaction in public health.

There are several theories and models that can be adapted to explain job satisfaction. 20–23 A common theme among these models and theories is that the employees' needs and motivations are taken into account, whether these are recognition, adequate training, feedback, or the quality of relationships with supervisors and coworkers. 20–24 There is a vast amount of literature that examines the relationship between employees' needs, motivations, and job satisfaction. However, these studies use varying measures and have mixed results. For example, some studies have found that job satisfaction is most correlated with organizational factors such as quality of supervision and the supervisor-subordinate relationship, leadership practices, workplace training, organization size, and salary whereas others focus on demographic characteristics such as race and gender. 24–27 Results from these studies provide direction for disciplines such as public health that have limited evidence relating to job satisfaction.

The primary purpose of this article is to characterize the current level of job satisfaction among a nationally representative sample of state public health agency employees and to identify the factors that are correlated with high and low levels of satisfaction. The secondary purpose of this article is to prioritize these factors to assist public health leaders in identifying high-impact areas to improve job satisfaction among staff. The focus of this study was not to examine personal and demographic characteristics that are unlikely to change, but rather to focus on the aspects of the workplace environment that influence job satisfaction.

Survey development

This project received a determination of “exempt” from the Chesapeake Institutional Review Board (Pro00009674). This article examines the workplace environment characteristics associated with the job satisfaction of the public health workforce using data collected from Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS). The methods describing the creation of PH WINS are explained in “The Methods Behind PH WINS” in this supplement to Journal of Public Health Management and Practice . 28 To summarize, the purpose of PH WINS was to collect individual worker perspectives across all disciplines and geographic regions. The development of PH WINS began in 2013, with a consensus-building process among 31 public health stakeholders representing an array of disciplines. 29 A technical expert panel was convened to guide the sampling methodology, instrument creation, and protocols for survey fielding and administration. 28

PH WINS has 4 main sections: training needs, workplace environment/job satisfaction, perceptions of national trends, and demographics. 17 Items from PH WINS used in this analysis were adapted from the United States Office of Personnel Management Annual Survey and Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, the CDC Technical Assistance and Service Improvement Initiative: Project Officer Survey, the Public Health Foundation Worker Survey, and the Bowling Green University Job in General (JIG) Scale (abridged). 30–33

After pretesting and preliminary psychometric analysis (also explained in “The Methods Behind PH WINS”), the instrument was fielded among 37 states from September to December 2014. 28 A total of 40 091 survey invitations were sent out to health agency employees in the 37 participating states; 19 171 responded for a raw response rate of 48%. After adjusting for noncentral office staff, nonpermanent employee status, undeliverable e-mail addresses, and those who were no longer in their position, the response rate was 46% (n = 10 246). A nationally representative data set of central office staff, defined as permanent employees who work in the central office of the SHA as opposed to having been assigned to local or regional offices, was constructed. A set of weights was calculated using balanced repeated replication to account for differential nonresponse and demographic characteristics.

Job satisfaction

Job satisfaction was measured using the Bowling Green State University JIG Scale (abridged). 33 This validated scale includes 8 descriptive words or phrases such as “makes me content” and “better than most” to determine overall job satisfaction. Generally, a score above 27 signifies satisfaction with one's job and a score less than 22 signifies dissatisfaction. 34

We describe the job satisfaction of the study population among several categories including age, race, gender, highest level of educational attainment, supervisory status, salary, region, agency tenure, and agency size. We used the SHA workforce data from the 2012 ASTHO Profile to determine agency size. State health agencies with a workforce of 700 or fewer are categorized as small, between 701 and 1400 as medium, and more than 1400 as large. Overall, 18% are small, 24% medium, and the remaining 58% are classified as large.

Independent-group t tests, 1-way analysis of variance, and post hoc Tukey tests for pairwise mean comparisons were performed to identify differences in JIG Scale score among and within these variables; these are presented in Table 1 . A thorough description of the study population, including demographic information and educational background, is presented in this issue (“Highlights From the Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey: The First Nationally Representative Survey of State Health Agency Employees.”) 17

Workplace environment

This article focuses on examining the relationship between the employees' perceptions of workplace environment characteristics and job satisfaction while accounting for demographic characteristics and other covariates. There were 20 items in PH WINS that ascertained the employees' perception of their workplace environment. These items were measured with a 5-point Likert scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree . To condense these items in broader categories, a factor analysis was conducted ( Table 2 ). For each factor, we examined the proportion of SHA staff by level of agreement with items such as “my supervisor/team leader treats me with respect.” All such items were worded in a positive manner such that agreement indicated a higher level of support. In addition, to prioritize workplace environment items, we compared mean JIG Scale scores by level of agreement, and analyze the significant differences in the results section. These factors will serve as the primary dependent variables.

Regression model

A multivariate linear regression examining the correlates of individuals' JIG Scale score is presented in Table 3 . Selection of independent variables and covariates was based on the theoretical importance from the literature review and the preliminary statistical analysis. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to detect the general strength and the direction of the relationship between the variables of interest. Salary and supervisory status were highly correlated, and salary was dropped from the final model on the basis of conflicting findings from the literature review. 15 , 35 Age and agency tenure were also correlated, and age was dropped from the model because previous studies have identified agency tenure as a correlate of job satisfaction. 24 Other variables in the model were significantly correlated (supervisory status and agency tenure) but had low correlation coefficients and therefore remained in the final model.

The final model included workplace environment factors, supervisory status, gender, race, years with the employee's current agency (agency tenure), highest level of educational attainment, organization size, and region. Model fit was checked by a variety of measures, including plotting the residuals, examining outliers, and checking the r 2 value. Collinearity was examined by calculating variance inflation factors. The results indicated that the chosen model is stable and explains 45% of the variation in job satisfaction.

Job satisfaction of the SHA workforce

As shown in Table 1 , a majority of survey respondents were very satisfied with their job and had an overall mean JIG Scale score of 37.19 (95% confidence interval [CI], 36.8-37.61). Typically a JIG Scale score above 27 indicates satisfaction. 34 There were no significant differences in the JIG Scale score by gender or education. There was a significant difference in the JIG Scale score between those making a salary of $35 000 or less, $35 000.01-$55 000, and $95 000 or higher ( P < .01). There were also significant differences in the JIG Scale score between nonsupervisors and supervisors and between managers and executives ( P < .01). In addition, there were significant differences between executives and the other categories (team leaders, supervisors, and managers; P < .01). In both cases, higher levels of supervisory status and higher salaries were associated with a higher JIG Scale score. However, because salary and supervisory status were highly correlated, we dropped salary level from the model. Having a tenure with the agency between 0 and 5 years was associated with a higher JIG Scale score than a tenure with the agency of 6-10 or 11-15 years ( P < .01). White SHA employees had a significantly higher JIG Scale score than nonwhite employees ( P < .01). Younger employees (those younger than 25 years) had a significantly higher JIG Scale score than those who were 31 to 65 years of age ( P < .03). There were also significant differences when comparing the size of the SHA. Both small and large organizations had significantly higher JIG Scale scores than medium-sized organizations ( P < .01.) Geographically, the New England and Atlantic regions (HHS [US Department of Health and Human Services] 1 & 2) had a significantly lower JIG Scale score than the Mountain/Midwest regions (HHS 7 & 8) ( P < .01).

Workplace environment characteristics and job satisfaction

The factor analysis ( Tables 2 and 3 ) resulted in 3 categories: supervisory support, organizational support, and employee engagement. Because the literature shows that organizational support (training, communication, workload) and supervisory support (respect, good relationships, working well with individuals of different backgrounds) were associated with job satisfaction, they were chosen as primary independent variables for the regression model and items related to employee engagement were excluded. 15 , 24 , 25 , 35

Supervisory support

At least 66% of employees agreed or strongly agreed that items characterized as supervisory support were present in their work environment. These items are shown in Table 2 and include the following: “my supervisor/team leader treats me with respect,” “my supervisor and I have a good working relationship,” “my supervisor supports my need to balance work and family issues,” “my supervisor/team leader provides me with opportunities to demonstrate my leadership skills,” “supervisors/team leaders in my work unit support employee development,” and “supervisors/team leaders work well with employees of different backgrounds.” The 3 items with the highest levels of disagreement were as follows: “my supervisor/team leader provides me with opportunities to demonstrate my leadership skills,” “supervisors/team leaders in my work unit support employee development,” and “supervisors/team leaders work well with employees of different backgrounds.” For each item, a higher level of agreement was associated with a higher JIG Scale score. The 2% of employees who strongly disagreed with the statement, “my supervisor and I have a good working relationship,” had the lowest mean JIG Scale score (16.99). The supervisory support item with the highest mean JIG Scale score was “supervisors/team leaders in my work unit support employee development.” Employees who strongly agreed with that statement had a mean JIG Scale score of 43.74.

Organizational support

There was less agreement with items related to organizational support than supervisory support. The highest level of agreement (62%) was for the statement “my workload is reasonable.” Those employees who agreed with that statement had a mean JIG Scale score of 43.43. The 2 items with the lowest levels of agreement were “communication between senior leadership and employees is good in my organization” and “creativity and innovation are rewarded.” Those who strongly disagreed with these statements had respective mean JIG Scale scores of 24.28 and 21.73, respectively. These scores indicate a neutral attitude toward the job, rather than satisfaction. The organizational support item with the lowest mean JIG Scale score was among employees who strongly disagreed with the statement “my organization is a good place to work.” These individuals had a mean JIG Scale score of 16.38, which signifies overall dissatisfaction with their job. Interestingly, this item also had the highest mean JIG Scale score (45.40) among employees who strongly agreed that their organization was a good place to work. Both supervisory and organizational support characteristics showed significant, positive relationships with the JIG Scale score.

Regression results

To further examine the relationship between supervisory and organizational support and job satisfaction, we ran a multivariate linear regression using the JIG Scale score as the primary dependent variable and 2 factors of the workplace environment, supervisory support and organizational support, as the primary independent variables ( Table 4 ).

State health agency employees who reported higher levels of supervisory support had an increased JIG Scale score of 4.26 (95% CI, 3.88-4.65). Employees with higher levels of organizational support had an increased JIG Scale score of 6.75 (95% CI, 6.23-7.28) after adjusting for covariates. Organizational support had a higher coefficient, suggesting that job satisfaction is more closely related to organizational support than to supervisory support. This finding is consistent with our descriptive analysis in Tables 2 and 3 . Employees agreed less with organizational support factors than with supervisory support factors.

Other factors significantly associated with the JIG Scale score include race, agency tenure, supervisory status, and agency size. Education, gender, and geographic region showed no significant relationship to the JIG Scale score in the multivariate linear regression.

This study, for the first time, examined job satisfaction among a nationally representative sample of SHA employees and contributes to the current job satisfaction literature by introducing a new discipline: public health. The goals of this study were to characterize the current level of job satisfaction among public health workers, identify the factors that are correlated with high and low levels of satisfaction, and recommend strategies for public health practitioners aiming to improve job satisfaction, motivation, performance, and retention of employees.

The SHA workforce has a very high level of job satisfaction. This finding was unexpected considering the constant change and uncertainty in the field related to policy, funding, and technology. In this study, employees who strongly agreed with survey items related to organizational support had a significantly higher job satisfaction score. Components of organizational support ( Table 3 ) included training, communication, creativity, workload, and whether individuals recommend their organization as a good place to work. Assessing training needs and rewarding creativity and innovation were the items with the highest level of disagreement. These results suggest that the greatest impact and mechanism for improving organizational support and therefore job satisfaction are through assessing training needs and allowing SHA employees to work in creative and innovative ways. This confirms findings from other studies that emphasize the relationship between workplace learning and job satisfaction. 25 Rowden 25 found that informal and incidental training opportunities, including coaching and mentoring, were more associated with overall satisfaction as well as a feeling of recognition and support by the organizations. It is a common theme in public health to advocate for increased training activities and workforce development. In addition to improving skills and performance, this study suggests that investment of time and money into addressing training needs will increase job satisfaction. Further research and evaluation should be conducted to determine the type of training and the methods of delivery that will leave employees feeling empowered and supported to do their work.

Attention should also be given to exploring how creativity can be interjected into a work environment that can have highly bureaucratic constraints. Results from this study suggest that employees do not feel that creativity and innovation are rewarded. That lack of creativity contributes to low job satisfaction and possibly attrition. This finding aligns with other studies that emphasize the importance of autonomy and working independently. 24 Employees may feel that they are constricted by their work environment, given rules and regulations associated with federal funding, state policies and procedures, and/or other bureaucratic considerations. State health agencies should recognize that diversifying funding sources, engaging in partnerships, and revamping policies and procedures to allow employees to innovate and work creatively are all important to achieving public health goals and will also lead to important gains in job satisfaction, performance, and retention.

Another method of increasing job satisfaction is through supervisory support. This study found that higher levels of supervisory support were associated with a higher degree of job satisfaction. Items describing supervisory support, as shown in Table 2 , describe aspects of the supervisory-subordinate relationship. Supervisory items with the lowest levels of agreement included providing opportunities to demonstrate leadership skills, supporting employee development, and working well with employees of different backgrounds. This finding supports previous works that stress the importance of communication, empowerment, autonomy, and trust in the workplace. 15 , 24 Campbell et al 24 found that vertical communication and collaboration between supervisors and subordinates significantly increased job satisfaction among public health nurses. Governmental public health agencies may want to encourage managers to provide increased responsibility and opportunities for their staff to take the initiative on a small project. Allowing these opportunities could increase trust, provide a workforce development opportunity, and allow the supervisor to coach their employee in a safe, controlled environment.

Clearly, the public health workforce values high-quality supervisory relationships. To meet this need, public health practitioners should consider actively identifying internal communication channels to gather feedback at all levels of the organization. Furthermore, employees who supervise others may find management and diversity training that emphasizes active listening, open communication, and clear expectations as one avenue to ensure that managers are adequately equipped to provide supervisory support.

This study also examined whether satisfaction differed significantly by gender, race, educational attainment, supervisory status, and agency tenure. Significant differences in job satisfaction were identified among employees with a shorter agency tenure, who are nonwhite, and who are not in a supervisory position. This suggests that employees falling into these categories require more organizational and supervisory support efforts. Employees with greater agency tenure, experience, and comfort in their role could have an increased sense of security in their position compared with new hires. 20 , 24 Offering orientation and onboarding programs may boost new hires' levels of comfort and security and promote assimilation into the new work environment. In addition, providing continued support and professional development with increased job responsibilities through an employee's first few years may continue to increase the average employee tenure in an organization.

Also consistent with other studies was the finding that individuals in supervisory positions have significantly higher levels of job satisfaction. 24 , 36 This re-affirms the finding that worker empowerment is a critical component of job satisfaction. Employees who feel empowered to make decisions and contributions are more likely to have higher job satisfaction. 36–38 This finding aligns with several items of supervisory and organizational support such as feeling that “creativity and innovation are rewarded” and “my supervisor/team leader provides me with opportunities to demonstrate my leadership skills.” Finally, white employees had a significantly higher JIG Scale score than nonwhite employees. It is beyond the scope of this article to explore the complex personal and emotional factors related to diversity and job satisfaction. This finding is highlighted to make practitioners aware that employees may have individual and specific needs to achieve the highest levels of job satisfaction.

Findings from this study extend our current knowledge of job satisfaction in public health. It is clear that workforce development needs and training should be prioritized, but it is also evident that good working relationships between supervisors and supervisees are critical. Because both organizational and supervisory support were highly correlated with job satisfaction, programs that address both factors may have the highest impact. Public health leaders should encourage informal coaching and mentoring targeted at groups with significantly lower satisfaction. Simply providing time and the place for these relationships to develop may provide the additional organizational and supervisory support necessary to decrease the differences in job satisfaction. Furthermore, having this added interaction and relationship could positively impact employees' relationships with SHA leaders, adding to the individuals' perceptions of supervisory support.

Limitations

There were 4 main limitations of this study. First, the PH WINS data could have increased accuracy and generalizability if the 13 other states had participated. While these estimates have very low standard errors, stronger conclusions could be drawn with more SHA representation. The second limitation of this study is not accounting for every factor associated with job satisfaction. Highly personal information such as marital status, health status, and personality characteristics were not measured in PH WINS and have all been shown to impact individual job satisfaction. 26 , 39 , 40 Another limitation of this study is the possible bias that may exist in the data. During the fielding of PH WINS, several survey participants voiced concerns about their privacy and possible identification. This fear may have introduced bias that would overestimate job satisfaction. Although PH WINS data have these limitations, we expect that biases are ameliorated by the high number of survey respondents. A final limitation is that this study was cross-sectional. While several interesting associations were found, the findings should not be interpreted as causal.

While SHA workers seem to be very satisfied with their jobs, identifying the factors associated with job satisfaction is critical to successful strategies to improve retention and performance. Practitioners should focus on factors related to organizational and supervisory support. Efforts that assess and meet the training needs of new employees while building respect and trust from supervisors may be the most effective methods to ensure high levels of job satisfaction. Informal mentorship programs are one example of an initiative that addresses factors associated with organizational and supervisory support at low cost. Further research is needed to clearly identify and prioritize methods to improve organizational and supervisory support and how these factors relate to motivation, performance, and retention.

job satisfaction; public health; workforce

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Work-life balance is an increasingly significant aspect of modern work culture, reflecting an employee's ability to manage their work responsibilities alongside their personal life. This paper explores the concept of work-life balance, its determinants, and its profound impact on job satisfaction. It examines various dimensions of work-life balance, including flexible working hours, workload, and organizational support, to understand their effects on job satisfaction. By examining various studies and theoretical perspectives, this paper aims to highlight the importance of fostering a balanced work environment to enhance employee well-being and organizational productivity. The study identifies key factors that contribute to an optimal work-life balance and how these factors enhance job satisfaction.

Article Details

• Open access
• Published: 26 June 2024

Health care workers’ self-perceived meaning of residential care work

• Sui Yu Yau 1 ,
• Yin King Linda Lee 1 ,
• Siu Yin Becky Li 1 ,
• Sin Ping Susan Law 1 ,
• Sze Ki Veronica Lai 1 &
• Shixin Huang 2  

BMC Health Services Research volume  24 , Article number:  766 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Attracting and supporting a sustainable long-term care (LTC) workforce has been a persistent social policy challenge across the globe. To better attract and retain a sustainable LTC workforce, it is necessary to adopt a unified concept of worker well-being. Meaning of work is an important psychological resource that buffers the negative impacts of adverse working conditions on workers’ motivation, satisfaction, and turnover intention. The aim of this study was to explore the positive meaning of care work with older people and its implications for health care workers’ job satisfaction and motivation to work in the LTC sector.

This study adopted a qualitative descriptive design that pays particular attention to health care workers; such as nurses, personal care workers; as active agents of the meaning making and reframing of care work in LTC communities in a East Asia city. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty health care workers in LTC communities in Hong Kong. Thematic analysis was employed for data analysis.

The research findings indicate that while health care workers perform demanding care work and experience external constraints, they actively construct positive meanings of care work with older people as a helping career that enables them to facilitate the comfortable aging of older people, build affectional relationships, achieve professional identity, and gain job security.

Conclusions

This qualitative study explores how health care workers negotiate the positive meaning of older people care work and the implications of meaningful work for workers’ job satisfaction and motivation to work in the LTC sector. The importance of a culturally sensitive perspective in researching and developing social policy intervention are suggested.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Recruiting and retaining health care workers (HCWs) in the long-term care (LTC) sector is a persistent worldwide social policy challenge [ 1 ]. Across the globe, population aging will create significantly higher demands for LTC services for older people. These demands include residential care services, especially among older people with complex care needs due to age-related disabilities and chronic diseases [ 2 ]. Comprised mainly of nurses and personal care workers, HCWs in LTC communities perform a variety of tasks that are essential to maintain the functional ability of older people, including helping with activities of daily living (ADL) (such as bathing, toileting and eating), instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) (such as taking medication), monitoring and coordinating care, and communicating with older people and their families [ 3 ]. Despite the growing demand and significance of LTC services, health care work in LTC communities is often devalued as “dirty work” and characterized by low wages, precarious working conditions, limited career development opportunities, understaffing, and work overload [ 4 ].

In the context of LTC communities, while the research to date has extensively evaluated the demanding working conditions that lead to negative well-being outcomes for HCWs [ 1 ], relatively little is known about the positive meaning that HCWs experience in, and attribute to, their care work in LTC communities [ 5 ]. Further exploration of how HCWs engage in meaningful work is helpful to the development of strategies that improve worker well-being and other work outcomes in LTC communities, especially job satisfaction and worker retention. In addition, cultural and social contexts exert a heavy influence on the meaning of care [ 6 ]. Most of the current literature on older people care work has been produced and addressed in Anglo-American contexts; there are limited evaluations of the meanings and experiences of older people care work from the perspectives of HCWs in East Asia, a region that is characterized by a large, rapidly aging population and unique socio-cultural meanings of older people care. A culturally sensitive understanding of what contributes to meaningful work in the LTC setting is thus needed to attract and support the LTC workforce beyond the Western contexts. Thus, this qualitative study aims to examine how HCWs in LTC communities construct positive meanings of older people care and also the implications of meaningful work for their job satisfaction and intention to stay in the LTC sector in Hong Kong, in the People’s Republic of China. This study is produced as part of a larger research project examining the social construction of stigma attached to older people care work in Hong Kong’s LTC communities [ 7 ] and pays particular attention to HCWs’ meaning construction in relation to the policy, organizational, and socio-cultural contexts to inform LTC workforce development policy.

Constructing meaning of work in LTC communities

Meaning of work (MOW) is an important psychological resource that buffers the negative impacts of adverse working conditions on workers’ motivation, satisfaction, and turnover intention [ 8 , 9 ]. Across different occupational contexts, organizational scholars have consistently found that MOW is a significant aspect of workers’ subjective well-being and is associated with positive worker and organizational outcomes, including higher work engagement, organizational commitment, worker retention, and productivity [ 10 ]. MOW refers to “employees’ understandings of what they do at work as well as the significance of what they do” [ 11 ]. It captures how employees make sense of their experiences at work, as well as the role of work in the context of life [ 12 ]. MOW consists of three primary facets: positive meaning in work, meaning making through work, and greater good motivation [ 13 ]. Meaning in work concerns individuals’ subjective interpretations of experiences and interactions at work in terms of the values, attitudes, and beliefs that they see as intrinsic to the nature of their work and working relationships [ 10 ]. Meaning making through work involves the idea that work could serve as a critical avenue for meaning making in life, such as facilitating personal growth, deepening self-understanding, and attaining personal and professional identity [ 14 ]. Lastly, greater good motivation implies the perception that one’s work has positive impacts on the greater good, ranging from generating positive contributions to others to responding to the meaning of work [ 15 ].

Although MOW is experienced by individual employees as feelings and cognitions, a sociological perspective of MOW suggests that the meaning individuals ascribe to their work is constructed within an array of socially influenced worldviews regarding the value of their work activities [ 16 ]. Individuals’ meaning making of their jobs, roles, and selves at work is a dynamic process that is influenced by the social and interpersonal valuation and devaluation of their work [ 11 ]. Work in the LTC sector is often socially constructed as “dirty work” that is physically, socially, and morally tainted [ 17 , 18 ]. The social discourses on “dirty work” are further reinforced by the emotionally and physically demanding nature of care work, as well as the poor job quality in the LTC sector [ 19 ]. Work in LTC communities is typically characterized by poor compensation, heavy workloads, precarious part-time employment, limited career development prospects, limited training and supervision, and low occupational status compared to other healthcare fields [ 20 ].

Given these external constraints, it is not surprising that HCWs in LTC communities feel disempowered to make positive sense of their care work [ 21 ], which in turn negatively influences their job satisfaction and intention to work in the LTC sector [ 17 ]. Despite the social devaluation and demanding nature of older people care work, HCWs in LTC communities could actively engage in negotiating the meaning of their work and construct positive career identities to overcome the taint of dirty work, a research theme that to date remains underdeveloped [ 22 ]. These positive meanings might include forming caring relationships with older people [ 5 ].

Residential care services and LTC workforce in Hong Kong

Health care workers in LTC communities negotiate the meaning of care work within particular social policy, organizational, and socio-cultural contexts [ 7 ]. Given the drastically increasing demand for residential care among older people, the chronic workforce crisis in the LTC sector, and the transforming socio-cultural meaning of care for older people [ 4 ], it has never been timelier to explore the meaning of work in Hong Kong’s LTC communities.

Hong Kong is an economically advanced metropolis located in the Southern part of China. With increasing life expectancy, Hong Kong’s aging population is projected to increase from 1.12 million (or 15% of total population) in 2015 to 1.51 million (or 30.6% of total population) in 2043, significantly higher than the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) average percentage (25% in 2043) [ 23 ]. As a result, the demand for LTC services, including residential care services, will also increase drastically. The limited residential spaces, the transformation of family structure, and the imbalanced public investment in community and residential care have turned the number of older people who require residential care in Hong Kong into one of the highest among developed economies [ 24 ].

Hong Kong adopts a hybrid model in the financing and provision of its residential care services. In 2022, there were about 76,200 older people require residential care in Hong Kong, among which 46% (or a total number of 35,040) were subsidized by the government and 54% (or a total number of 41,160) were non-subsidized [ 25 ]. While residential care services in general are provided by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (31%) and the private sector (69%), the majority of subsidized residential services are provided by NGOs, although the government also purchases subsidized places and services from private facilities [ 26 ]. Like many developed economies, Hong Kong has experienced an acute shortage of HCWs in LTC communities [ 26 ]. Even though the Hong Kong government has initiated many measures over the past few years to tackle the issues of the care workforce crisis, such as increasing salaries, launching different schemes to train young people and encouraging migrant workers to join the LTC communities, 20% of HCW positions in LTC communities remain vacant [ 27 ].

HCWs’ well-being is indeed connected to workforce attraction and retention. Despite the Hong Kong government initiating various ongoing measures to increase the number of workforce in LTC sector, there will be a shortfall of 4,500 HCWs in the next three year [ 28 ]. To better attract and retain a sustainable LTC workforce, it is necessary to adopt a unified concept of worker well-being that not only addresses the structural factors, such as economic and physical working conditions, but also the subjective factors that attract and motivate workers to join and remain in the LTC sector, including promoting meaningful, valued work [ 29 , 30 ]. Caring for older people entails unique socio-cultural meanings in Hong Kong and East Asian societies. Although sociodemographic changes have transformed the patterns of social care for older people, most noticeably exemplified by the rising demand for residential care, such cultural norms still exert significant influences on the meaning of care work [ 31 ]. The aim of this study was to explore the positive meaning of care work with older people and its implications for health care workers’ job satisfaction and motivation to work in the LTC sector.

This study adopted a qualitative descriptive design that focuses on HCWs as active agents of the meaning making and reframing of care work in LTC communities. The use of qualitative descriptive design is common in health care research because of its simplicity and flexibility in diverse healthcare environment. Qualitative research is appropriate to explore experiences and perceptions on subjective nature of a phenomenon. It is especially suitable for nursing and healthcare studies that interested in individual’s experience [ 32 ]. Thus, this design is particularly relevant to this study which aimed to explore the positive meaning of care work with older people and its implications for health care workers’ job satisfaction and motivation to work in the LTC sector.

In the context of Hong Kong, HCWs in LTC communities include personal care workers (PCWs) who take care of residents’ ADL and IADL, health workers (HWs, largely equivalent to “certified nursing assistants” in the United States) who monitor the work of PCWs and are responsible for the delivery of basic nursing care, and enrolled nurses (ENs) and registered nurses (RNs) who provide nursing care and oversee the work of PCWs and HWs.

Recruitment sample

Purposive sampling was used to recruit HCWs from LTC communities as research participants. To meet the inclusion criteria, participants had to (1) be serving in the role of a PCW, HW, EN, or RN; (2) have at least 6 months of experience working in an LTC community; and (3) be providing frontline services to older people. The exclusion criteria were as follows: (1) LTC workers who had only a managerial role and did not provide frontline care; (2) LTC workers working in other roles (e.g., social workers, occupational therapists, physical therapists). In the process of participant recruitment, the maximum variation sampling method was used to ensure the heterogeneity of participants in terms of participants’ characteristics. The use of maximum variation sampling method aimed to recruit information-rich participants and to capture the widest range of possible perspectives [ 33 ]. Thus, in order to ensure maximum variation, this study recruited participants based on a variety of nature such as gender, age, role and rank, years of work experience, and types of LTC communities worked for including publicly subsidized and private communities.

Six LTC communities were approached by the researchers. The managerial staff of each LTC community was invited to refer potential participants to the researchers after briefed for the purpose of the study, as well as the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the sample. The researcher (S. Huang) liaised with the managerial staff to schedule the logistics. Participants were fully informed of the purpose and procedures of the study. Informed consents were obtained before data collection commenced. Pseudonyms were used in the study in order to protect participants’ identities.

Data were collected between February 2021 and December 2021. Thirty participants were recruited in the study. The average age of the participants was 37 years old, and their mean years of tenure in the care sector were 7 years. Reflecting the gender ratio of the overall population of the care workforce, 5 participants were male and 25 were female. Thirteen of the participants worked as nurses (five RNs and eight ENs), eight worked as HWs, and nine were PCWs. Sixteen participants had attained a post-secondary education and 13 had earned secondary education, with only one participant having received primary or below education (see Table 1 for demographic data of the participants) [see Additional file 1].

Data collection

Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted. Interviewers were trained in qualitative study methods and came from a variety of healthcare research backgrounds of nursing and social work. Interviews were conducted in private meeting rooms in LTC communities. Interview sessions lasted from 30 to 80 min (mean = 55 min). Cantonese was adopted in the interviews. An interview guide was developed for this study [see Additional file 2]. Each interview began with general questions revolving around the nature of the participant’s work and daily work routines, followed by exploratory questions that unraveled the meanings the participant made from her/his work. With the written informed consent of participants, all interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Data analysis

Thematic analysis [ 34 ] was used to analyze the interview data. Adopting an inductive approach to analysis, this study followed the six-phase approach to thematic analysis that includes (1) data familiarization, (2) coding, (3) initial theme generation, (4) theme development and review, (5) refining, defining and naming themes, and (6) writing up [ 35 ]. Two experienced qualitative researchers (V. Lai and S. Huang) coded each interview transcript independently. Transcripts were coded with the facilitation of the qualitative research data analysis software NVivo 12. All the authors met regularly to review interview transcripts, compare coding, and generate initial analytical themes together. Disagreements regarding coding were raised and discussed in team meetings until agreements were reached. Two authors then finalized the processes by developing, reviewing, refining, defining, and naming themes.

The trustworthiness and rigor of the study was ensured by credibility, dependability, confirmability and transferability [ 36 ]. In order to enhance the credibility, two researchers read the transcripts and conduct coding independently for comparison. They discussed the emergent themes and codes until a consensus was researched. Dependability was achieved by using an audit trail that detailed the description of the research process to reduce bias. Peer debriefing with an expertise was used for confirmability. Transferability of findings was attained by describing the participant characteristics and the methodology of the study transparently and comprehensively in order to allow readers understood the strengths and limitations of the study.

Engaging in care for others can be highly rewarding work as reflected from the participants. Five themes identified from the data that articulated the positive meaning that HCWs ascribed to their work in LTC communities, including (1) “My work makes their lives more comfortable”: Helping older people to age comfortably; (2) “Everyday our affections increase”: Building meaningful relationships; (3) “These are all skills”: Forming a professional identity of older people care; (4) “I want to find a job that ensures I will never be unemployed”: Ensuring job security; and (5) “They are extra work”: Barriers to attaining the positive meaning of work.

“My work makes their lives more comfortable”: Helping older people to age comfortably

When making meaning of their work, the HCWs most frequently evoked the notion of helping older people to “age comfortably” in LTC communities. The idea of comfortable aging, as suggested by HCWs in this study, referred to both physical well-being (i.e., having desirable health outcomes and being free of pain) and psychosocial well-being. The physical and psychosocial well-being entailed the traditional socio-cultural values in Chinese society.

The HCWs suggested that their care activities supported older people’s comfortable aging by maintaining and even improving their physical health. The HCWs in LTC communities engaged in a variety of caregiving tasks in their everyday work. The daily work routine of the HWs, ENs, and RNs revolved around addressing the health needs of older residents through clinical and medical activities such as wound dressing, medication administration, peritoneal dialysis, tube feeding, etc. The care activities of the PCWs included personal care such as assisting with bathing, dressing, eating, toileting, transferring, grooming, etc., depending on the frailty level of the older residents. The HCWs suggested that they found their work meaningful because their care activities were helpful to older residents achieving desirable health outcomes.

I feel happy because my work makes their lives more comfortable. For example, a resident’s wound was quite severe and was at stage one or stage two before intervention. Then, we had multiple interventions and dressed the wound one shift after another until it finally healed. I gained a sense of fulfillment in the process. This process made me feel that our care was effective. (EN2)

As demonstrated by a participant, in the process of helping older people maintain their physical health, HCWs gain a strong sense of self efficacy and job satisfaction. Even though the HCWs pointed out that their care did not always lead to full recovery as many older people in LTC communities are physically frail and experiencing health deterioration, they deemed their work to be meaningful because it helped older people maintain the highest level of physical comfort possible.

Not everyone recovers. Some are not in a good condition, but at least my care helps to ensure they are not too bad. Even though they cannot recover fully, their wounds might get smaller or not deteriorate any more. They don’t feel so much pain… They can feel more comfortable. (HW3)

In addition, the HCWs suggested that their everyday care conveys companionship and psychological support to older people in LTC communities, which is also essential to their comfortable aging.

Actually, the meaning of taking care of them is about being part of their last journey of life. In other words, I can create a happy and comfortable later life for them before they pass away. There is someone who can talk with them and provide good care to them. For me, that is what nursing care is about. (EN4)

The idea of facilitating comfortable aging espoused by HCWs has socio-cultural relevance in Chinese society, where providing care to older people to enable their comfortable aging is seen as a moral virtue. Several HCWs, including those in younger ages, framed their care as rewarding and meaningful work as they believed that taking good care of older people would “accumulate good karma” for themselves and their family.

I quite like taking care of older people. It is like some sort of traditional thought… I think taking care of older people is accumulating good karma. I believe that this is beneficial to my family and myself. (EN1) I think it is accumulating good karma. When taking care of older people, I am thinking that if I take good care of them now, I will be treated well by others when I get old and need care from others in the future. I do my work with this mindset. Therefore, I do not see my work as hard or dirty. (HW4)

“Every day our affections increase”: Building meaningful relationships

The second theme that the HCWs ascribed to their work concerned the valuable long-term relationships they built with older residents in their daily work, through which they found joy and personal growth.

HCWs, especially the nurses, constantly drew comparisons between LTC communities and other health care settings, such as hospitals, when discussing the meaning of their work. They suggested that working in a LTC facility allowed them to form long-term, genuine bonds with the older people they cared for, something they argued was rarely possible elsewhere. According to a participant, residential homes allow “the cultivation of human relationships and affection that is absent in hospitals” (RN3). A participant further elaborated:

I like talking with people. Working in a hospital is like fighting a war. I had no time to know the backgrounds of my patients. I couldn’t even remember their names when they were discharged from the hospital. Then, I will never see them again… However, LTC communities are very different. The conditions of the older people we serve are more stable. I have more time to get along with them. (EN6)

The cultivation of relationship involves human interaction and emotional exchange as reflected from the participants. The HCWs believed that they were the ones who provided “close, personal care” to the residents. In the process of performing everyday care activities, they had frequent interactions and developed close relationships with older people. Many participants suggested that being able to communicate and interact with older people was the most enjoyable part of their work. Despite the challenges of caregiving work, participants found their relationships with older residents “joyful”, “satisfying”, and “rewarding”.

When I perform my work and provide care to them, I gain joy and fun out of it. I feel happy to interact with people. [The happiness] is very personal. It might be chatting with a resident and receiving an unexpected response. Some residents with dementia are very funny. They always come up with something unexpected and make me feel happy. (HW4) The sense of satisfaction comes from my interactions with older people. Every day, our affections increase. They treat me like their granddaughter. I think acknowledgement from the boss does not matter a lot; I feel the biggest sense of satisfaction by getting the acknowledgement of the older people. They personally experience how well I deliver care. (EN5)

Moreover, some HCWs reported that their relationships with older residents were “reciprocal”, not only because they constantly received appreciation from the residents but also, more importantly, because they were able to learn “old wisdom” and achieve personal growth from the lived experiences of the older residents.

It is not only about providing a service to them; sometimes when I talk with them, they offer me their perspectives, from which I can learn something. This is more like a reciprocal relationship…Sometimes, the older people have old wisdom and special perspectives. (RN4) I think I learn a lot from the older people because I meet a lot of people here and learn about their lived experiences from our conversations. They like sharing with me and I can reflect upon myself… (HW5)

“These are all skills”: Forming a professional identity of older people care

HCWs proposed that older people care is highly skillful and professional, requiring communication, coordination, and chronic illness care skills. Being able to form a professional identity as a HCW for the older people thus constituted a salient MOW for the participants.

Participants in this study reported that they constantly experienced devaluation of their work by their family, friends, and health care professional allies, who regarded care work in LTC communities as “dirty, less skilled, and unprofessional”.

People imagine that this work is about changing diapers and dealing with shit and piss… My aunt used to say to me that she’d rather beg than work in a residential home. People are not willing to join this sector because they think older people care is dirty work and cannot accept dealing with human excreta. (PCW4) They think that we work here because our nursing skills are not competent enough to work as hospital nurses. But when they hear that I am working in an LTC community, they doubt that my work is different from that in hospitals. They doubt that we work here because our nursing skills are not competent enough to work as hospital nurses. (EN6)

Contrary to the negative evaluations of their work, the HCWs evoked positive meanings of care work in LTC communities. One participant described that care in LTC communities and care in hospitals were “both part of the continuum of care that tackles the different health needs of older people, ranging from acute disease to long-term chronic illness” (RN5). More importantly, their care work in LTC communities allowed them to reimagine the nature of health care from delivering physical care tasks to providing holistic care that included psychological support, health education, human communication, resource coordination, and organizational management.

It is wrong to assume that nurses working with older people are not professional. Instead, we are differently professional in our specialties. For hospital nurses, their professional expertise lies in emergency treatment. But working in LTC is professional in terms of mastering the daily operation of a facility, governmental ordinances, and communication with family members. (RN2)

While the HCWs framed their work as valuable and professional, the HCWs described how performing personal care for older residents, such as positioning, lifting, transferring, feeding, and bathing, requires specialized knowledge, training, and experience.

Everything, every machine here requires specialized knowledge and training to handle. It is not that straightforward and simple. So, working as a PCW is not only about changing diapers. We need to grasp health and medical knowledge to monitor older peoples’ vital signs. We must also monitor whether the older people have bruises or wounds. We must be very careful to know whether the older people are doing ok. These are all skills. (PCW2)

Participants indicated that there were many other aspects that distinguished them as “professional” that further produced meanings and values in their personal life. One participant, a HW, indicated that working in LTC communities enabled her to work with interdisciplinary professionals such as doctors, nurses, nutritionists, social workers, physical therapists, and occupational therapists and thus allowed her to gain health knowledge. Many HCWs mentioned that the older people care knowledge and skills they learned from work could be useful in their personal life, particularly in terms of taking care of their older parents and grandparents at home.

“I want to find a job that ensures I will never be unemployed”: Ensuring job security

HCWs, especially PCW and HW working in government-subsidized facilities, perceived that the LTC sector offers relatively promising job opportunities and security, a stable income, and a career development pathway. These instrumental values made the LTC sector attractive for the participants.

Across the globe, the LTC sector has long been suffering from the challenge of workforce shortage. For participants in this study, however, this challenge was perceived as a positive opportunity that added value to their jobs. Many proposed that they found older people care as meaningful work because with the trend of population aging, there would always be increasing workforce demands in the job market which could provide them with promising job opportunities and security. Some HCWs also mentioned that the job offered them income stability, which they deemed as valuable compared to other work in the service industry.

The availability of job stability and opportunities in older people care work was particularly salient for participants during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the unemployment rate was high due to economic recession. Several participants described that they joined the LTC sector during the COVID-19 pandemic for the stability it offered. For example, a participant described, “I was working in the hotel industry…Then I lost my job and couldn’t find a new one. I wanted to find a job that will ensure I will never be unemployed.” (PCW5).

In addition, participants suggested that they found their work meaningful because of the relatively promising career development opportunities. The LTC sector in Hong Kong provides HCWs with a career pathway and ladder to pursue career development. Although promotion and degree admission opportunities are highly competitive, some participants saw the career ladder that moves up from PCW, HW, and EN to RN as a promising pathway for them to gain better income and work benefits.

“They are extra work”: Barriers to attaining meaning of work

Despite the HCWs ascribing a variety of positive meanings to their work, they admitted that it was not always possible to attain these meanings in their everyday work. They identified several barriers to attaining MOW, including the lack of organizational support for relational care, heavy workloads and workforce shortages, as well as emotional burnout.

As described above, HCWs found that the relational components of their work, particularly the helping relationships and affectional interactions with older residents, made the work highly meaningful. However, participants reported that although the LTC sector had long placed emphasis on person-centered care, they received little organizational support to develop meaningful relationships in their everyday work. Given that their daily work routines and timetables were predominantly organized around the delivery of physical caregiving tasks, many HCWs described an important and meaningful part of care work – relationship building and psychological support – as “extra” work that received little organizational recognition.

Of course, a lot of my work with the residents is extra work. I prefer to deliver holistic care that goes beyond physical care. Physical care tasks are those that appear on the timetable. But for the other parts, I must address them for the residents at other times by myself. (RN1)

Moreover, the heavy workloads and the chronic lack of workers in LTC communities impose further strains on HCWs in fulfilling their daily work routines, making it even more difficult for them to provide relational care. Despite these organizational constraints, the HCWs reported that they creatively made time and space in and between their work routines to build relationships and address older residents’ psychosocial well-being needs.

When I distribute medications, I usually have casual chats with the residents by greeting them and asking how their sleep and meals went. Just chatting. But it depends on the situation. When accidents happen, I would be too busy to handle this. (HW2) Sometimes I am very busy and do not have time to interact with the residents at all… I usually use meal times when I am more or less available. Residents are usually sitting and waiting for meals before we distribute them. I will use the ten minutes or so to chat with them. (HW1)

Relationship building and affectional interaction can be satisfying and exhausting simultaneously. The HCWs described the high emotional demands from older people and their family members they had to bear in their everyday work, which frequently put them in a situation of emotional burnout which can detract from building meaning. In addition, some HCWs reported that it took a lot of emotional labor (i.e. to manage feeling as to fulfill job requirement) to care for older residents with difficult behaviors or personalities, especially those with declining mental health and dementia. They said that they constantly experienced distrust, blaming, and rejection from older residents when they performed caregiving tasks such as feeding, which added a considerable amount of strain to their work. Similarly, the HCWs had to deal with constant distrust and misunderstanding from residents’ family members, which caused some of them frustration and stress.

This is work that cannot get understanding from everyone. Some [family members of the residents] would not notice my efforts to care for the residents. However, if I make a minor mistake, they will blame me. Human beings make mistakes and are not perfect. I am also sincerely concerned for the older people, but they don’t understand and blame me for my mistake. (PCW7)

This study examines HCWs’ engagement in meaningful work in LTC communities in the context of an economically developed Chinese society in Hong Kong. It is found that HCWs deemed their work to be a meaningful helping career that facilitated comfortable aging for older people and connoted positive socio-cultural values. They further attributed their MOW to the valuable relationships developed in their daily work and to the positive professional identity and relatively promising job security in their work, although the attainment of positive MOW was hindered by a number of barriers. In this discussion, we describe how these findings can support social policy initiatives to attract, retain, and support the LTC workforce.

To date, research and social policy interventions on LTC workforce development have largely focused on structural factors that influence the retention of HCWs and their job satisfaction [ 37 ]. Studies informed by this line of inquiry have identified the importance of working conditions, especially pay and compensation, workload and staffing level, teamwork, and supervision, in shaping work-related outcomes [ 29 , 38 , 39 ]. Even though the positive organizational scholarship has long argued the beneficial impacts of positive psychological states, including perceptions of meaningful work, on workforce functioning and productivity [ 40 ], relatively little attention has been paid to positive working experiences in the LTC sector. Our study moves a step forward from the current literature by shedding light on the subjective meaning making of work as an important, yet often overlooked, aspect of direct care work in LTC communities. While the structural factors of working conditions are pivotal to the job quality in LTC communities, MOW can serve as a psychological resource that engenders positive emotions and motivates HCWs to engage in direct care work in LTC communities. The findings of this study thus provide nuanced evidence about promoting meaningful work as a promising intervention for LTC workforce development. This could be done by addressing structural factors such as promoting job security, improving time and resource constrains, enhancing organizational support in LTC communities. Also, this could be done by supporting relationship building and better integrating psychosocial care into older people care work and exploring socio-cultural resources that contribute to positive meaning making of older people care work. In addition, as an extension of this qualitative study, quantitative research that examines the impacts of MOW on workers’ turnover intention and job satisfaction, as well as MOW as a mediating mechanism in explaining the impacts of working conditions on worker outcomes in the LTC sector, will be an important area for future exploration.

The findings of this study also imply that the meaning construction of older people care should be further understood and supported in the broader contexts, including the LTC policy, organizational support, and the socio-cultural meaning of older people care. As indicated by our research findings, the professional identity and job security in the LTC sector are important parts of HCWs’ MOW. While research to date has stressed the lack of job security and professional status in the LTC sector [ 41 ], our study has provided somewhat contradictory findings. Participants in the present study has relatively positive perceptions about career prospects in the LTC sector, proposing that the growing demand for LTC in the face of population aging entails job opportunities and job security, both of which make a career in LTC attractive. The nurses highlighted that their work was different to but equally as professional, skilled, and challenging as acute hospital care. Some indicated that their nursing care experiences in LTC communities allowed them to develop specialties in chronic disease management to maintain the wellness and quality of life of older people. This positive perception of LTC work is partly shaped by the preliminary, yet far from finished, social policy attempts to professionalize the LTC workforce in the local context. In Hong Kong, LTC policy has laid out the foundation of a relatively promising career development pathway in the nursing profession for HCWs in the LTC sector, most noticeably through the establishment of the Vocational Qualifications Pathway (VQP) for the LTC service industry and professional training programs [ 42 ]. Our findings thus call for research and social policy interventions to address the professionalization of the LTC sector and enable HCWs to gain public recognition, rewarding pay, job security, and career development.

Additionally, the findings of this study add to the existing studies on working conditions in LTC communities by highlighting the lack of organizational support for relational care as an organizational barrier to attaining meaningful work. Our study echoes existing research findings that HCWs deem affectional interactions and long-term relationships with older people as meaningful and valuable [ 29 ]. Yet HCWs’ yearning for meaningful relationships with older people is constantly constrained by the organizational structures of LTC communities, particularly the traditional institutional model of care centered around measurable and functional caregiving tasks [ 43 , 44 ]. The culture change movement that calls for humanizing care practice by transforming the institutional form of care in LTC communities to person-centered and relational care [ 45 , 46 ]. This culture change movement is thus particularly relevant to promoting the meaningful work of HCWs. Facilitating positive, meaningful working experiences for the LTC workforce would require changes in the organizational cultures of LTC communities to enable flexible caregiving routines, professional training opportunities that address relationship and rapport building, and a humanizing working environment.

Lastly, the meaning of older people care is constructed under an array of socio-cultural values. Even though increasing scholarly attention is being paid to revealing a culturally sensitive approach to older people care [ 47 ], very few studies have examined the socio-cultural meanings and values attached to older people care work from HCWs’ perspectives in the international contexts. As illustrated in this study, the notion of facilitating comfortable aging was seen as “accumulating good karma” and contained socio-cultural meaning towards older people care within the Chinese society. While engaging in older people care work is socially constructed as a “dirty work” [ 17 ], it could entail cultural salience and be regarded as a rewarding career in a society that values the life experience and moral authority of older people. This finding thus reveals the importance of a culturally sensitive perspective in researching and developing social policy interventions for LTC workforce development, including promoting a culturally resonant positive image of work in the LTC sector. This policy implication is not only resonant to other Asian societies, but also to the international contexts as Asian migrant workers represent a considerable proportion of the LTC workforce in developed countries such as Australia, US, UK and other European countries [ 48 , 49 ].

Limitations

Although this study adopted the maximum variation sampling method to increase the variety of HCWs’ perspectives and experiences, its use of purposive sampling is limited in representativeness. Additionally, this research intended to explore the MOW for all types of HCWs (eg, EN, RN, HW, PCW). However, these HCWs have quite different working experiences and work meaning because of different job quality and professional status. As non-nurses are particularly vulnerable to the deprivation of subjective well-being in work because of the poor job quality of their work [ 5 ], future studies would benefit from examining the subjective meaning making of work among this specific group of workers.

This qualitative study explores how HCWs negotiate the positive meaning of older people care work and the implications of meaningful work for workers’ job satisfaction and motivation to work in the LTC sector in Hong Kong’s LTC communities. While HCWs perform physically and emotionally demanding care work, they actively construct a subjective meaning of older people care as a helping career that enables them to facilitate comfortable aging of older people, build affectionate relationships, achieve professional identity, and gain job security. Their construction of meaningful work is further discussed in an array of social policy, organizational, and socio-cultural factors that all entail future research and social policy implications of LTC workforce development.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets generated and analysed during this study are not publicly available to protect the participant' confidentiality. However, they are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Activities of daily living

Enrolled nurses

Health care workers

Health workers

Instrumental activities of daily living

Long-term care

Meaning of works

Personal care workers

Registered nurses

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Acknowledgements

We should like to thank the health care workers for participating in the study and the superintendents of the residential care homes for the older people to recruit the participants.

The work described in this paper was fully supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (UGC/FDS16/M12/20).

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Y.S.Y., L.Y.K.L., L.S.Y.B., L.S.P.S. and L.S.K.V. conceived the ideas for the research. H.S., L.S.Y.B., L.S.P.S. and L.S.K.V. collected the data. Y.S.Y. and H.S. analysed the data. H.S. led the writing with the help of Y.S.Y. All authors critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content. All authors have approved the final version of the article.

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Yau, S.Y., Lee, Y.K.L., Li, S.Y.B. et al. Health care workers’ self-perceived meaning of residential care work. BMC Health Serv Res 24 , 766 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-024-11218-2

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Research: Warehouse and Logistics Automation Works Better with Human Partners

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A study of automation usage in warehouse and logistics companies around the world suggests that blending human labor with robotics leads to greater efficiency than full automation alone. While scalable robotic systems can handle up to 1,000 tasks per hour, they often face limitations where additional robots don’t improve performance. Human-robot collaboration, employed by companies like DHL and CEVA, enhances productivity, reduces worker fatigue, and increases job satisfaction. The incremental approach of integrating human roles with automated systems not only keeps operations cost effective but also leverages human adaptability for continuous improvements.

In every sphere of business, the use of automation is growing. In warehouses and distribution, for instance, the worldwide market revenue for robotics automation is projected to grow from $7.91 billion in 2021 to more than $51 billion by 2030, according to one Statista forecast .

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Original research, investigating turnover intention in a financial organisation in gauteng, about the author(s).

Orientation: Losing employees prompts organisational competitiveness, which leads to increased financial organisation costs related to talent acquisition.

Research purpose: This study aimed to determine the relationship between authentic leadership and turnover intention and establish whether job satisfaction mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and turnover intention. Additionally, this study endeavoured to establish if the relation between authentic leadership, job satisfaction, and turnover intention is higher among post-Grade 12 employees than those with Grade 12 and lower qualifications.

Motivation for the study: There is limited research in the Gauteng financial sector concerning how job satisfaction is mediated and how education has diminished the relationship between authentic leadership and alleviating turnover intention.

Research approach/design and method: This study was influenced by the positivism paradigm and was quantitative, using an online survey to collect the data. The final sample consisted of 85 respondents.

Main findings: It was also established that authentic leadership did not significantly relate to turnover intention, while job satisfaction was a mediator between authentic leadership and turnover intention.

Practical/managerial implications: The significance of the study is that when employees are satisfied with leadership support, they provide honest and truthful feedback. This is especially true when employees work in an inclusive and harmonious work environment; thus, their turnover intention diminishes. This is very positive for finance organisations, which will incur talent acquisition costs as intention does not result in resignation.

Contribution/added value: This study developed a framework on how authentic leadership and job satisfaction indicators can diminish turnover intention.

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What Are The Fastest-Growing Jobs Of 2024?

Updated: Feb 23, 2024, 8:28am

The current job market might be turbulent at best, but there are still several career paths with strong projected growth trends through 2024 and beyond. In response to fluctuating job markets, job seekers are prioritizing high-growth careers and recession-proof jobs , upskilling to maintain a competitive edge.

Fortunately, some of the fastest-growing jobs in 2024 also offer stability and long-term potential. Whether you’re looking to switch jobs or you’re just launching your career, it’s worth considering these in-demand fields.

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Forbes Advisor’s education editors are committed to producing unbiased rankings and informative articles covering online colleges, tech bootcamps and career paths. Our ranking methodologies use data from the National Center for Education Statistics , education providers, and reputable educational and professional organizations. An advisory board of educators and other subject matter experts reviews and verifies our content to bring you trustworthy, up-to-date information. Advertisers do not influence our rankings or editorial content.

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Fastest-Growing Careers of 2024

We’ve listed eight of the fastest-growing careers of 2024 below, but this list is far from exhaustive. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), other jobs slated for high growth rates include taxi drivers, home health and personal care aides, actuaries, epidemiologists, veterinary support occupations and physical therapist assistants.

Jobs with the highest projected growth rates from 2022 to 2032 include nurse practitioners, data scientists, wind turbine service technicians and physician assistants.

Below are some of the fastest-growing careers in the health, tech and trade sectors.

Fastest-Growing Health Careers

Nurse practitioners.

Growth Rate (2022–32): +38% Median Pay: $125,900 per year Education Requirements: Master’s degree in nursing Career Overview: Nurse practitioners’ responsibilities vary widely depending on their state of licensure, but in general, nurse practitioners provide primary and urgent care services to a diverse array of patients. They work in various medical settings including hospitals, physicians’ offices and clinics.

Nurse practitioners may work independently, but frequent collaboration with physicians is often necessary to ensure patients’ health and wellness. Most states allow nurse practitioners to prescribe medications, diagnose conditions and order medical tests. Some nurse practitioners specialize in areas such as geriatric health, pediatrics or mental health.

Check out our guide on how to become a nurse practitioner .

Medical and Health Services Managers

Growth Rate (2022–32): +28% Median Pay: $104,830 per year Education Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in healthcare administration or a related field Career Overview: Medical and health services managers are responsible for planning, directing and coordinating healthcare providers’ business activities. They usually manage an entire facility, a clinical area or department or a physician group medical practice.

Medical and health service managers wear many hats. Overall, they play a crucial role in ensuring their facilities run smoothly and efficiently. It’s up to these professionals to set departmental goals and objectives and ensure that their staff meets those goals. They also make sure their facilities are up to date with codes and regulations.

These managers recruit and supervise staff, manage facility finances, create work schedules, prepare and monitor budgets and stay in close contact with medical staff and department heads.

Physician Assistants

Growth Rate (2022–32): +78% Median Pay: $126,010 per year Education Requirements: Master’s degree Career Overview: Physician assistants support physicians in examining, diagnosing and treating patients in a variety of healthcare settings, including primary care and family medicine, emergency medicine and psychiatry. Some physician assistants make house calls or visit patients in nursing homes.

Under the supervision of a physician, physician assistants are responsible for educating and counseling patients and their families, prescribing medication, assessing and recording a patient’s healing progress and researching various treatments.

Fastest-Growing Tech Careers

Data scientists.

Growth Rate (2022–32): +35% Median Pay: $103,500 per year Education Requirements: Bachelor’s degree Career Overview: Data scientists extract insights and knowledge from large, complex data sets. They leverage that data to make intelligent, informed decisions to help organizations improve their performance and achieve their goals.

Conducting surveys or scraping the web to collect data is a key component of a data scientist’s job. From there, data scientists clean and classify raw data, using machine learning and data visualization software to demonstrate their findings. It’s paramount that data scientists know how to communicate their findings effectively and in a way that’s accessible to a general audience.

While only a bachelor’s is required to enter the field, these professionals may hold master’s degrees in data science . Some gain discipline-specific training by building on prior academic experience with a data science bootcamp .

Information Security Analysts

Growth Rate (2021-31): +35% Median Pay: $102,600 per year Education Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity or a related field Career Overview: Information security analysts are responsible for ensuring the safety and security of an organization’s sensitive information and computer systems. They rigorously monitor networks for security breaches and investigate any attacks that may occur.

Information security analysts use software like firewalls and data encryption programs to safeguard sensitive assets. They are also responsible for documenting metrics and reporting attempted attacks. Information security analysts recommend security enhancements to management or senior IT staff, and they help other employees gain their footing with new security products and procedures.

Cybersecurity analysts are a type of information security analyst. For more information, check out our guides on information security vs. cybersecurity and how to become a cybersecurity analyst .

Software Developers

Growth Rate (2022-32): +25% Median Pay: $124,200 per year Education Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related field Career Overview: Software developers design and develop software applications to meet a variety of user needs. These professionals may participate in all stages of the development process, from research and ideation to creating models, overseeing development teams, documenting progress, testing and quality assurance. After a product launches, software developers help maintain its functionality through upgrades and bug fixes.

Often working in the computer systems design and software publishing industries, software developers frequently collaborate with clients, programmers, engineers and other professionals such as user experience designers. They also work in sectors such as finance and manufacturing and may create applications for consumer use or proprietary programs tailored to an organization’s internal needs.

Fastest-Growing Trade Careers

Wind turbine service technicians.

Growth Rate (2022–32): +45% Median Pay: $57,320 per year Education Requirements: Professional certificate Career Overview: Also known as wind techs, wind turbine service technicians install, maintain and repair wind turbines. The bulk of their work centers around maintaining wind turbines that have already been built, though these professionals may occasionally install new turbines when needed.

Wind techs inspect the exterior and physical integrity of wind turbines. They test and troubleshoot electrical, mechanical and hydraulic components and systems. They’re also responsible for replacing worn or malfunctioning equipment or components, collecting turbine data and servicing underground transmission systems.

Wind techs must be comfortable working outdoors, in confined spaces and at significant heights.

Solar Photovoltaic Installers

Growth Rate (2022–32): +22% Median Pay: $45,230 per year Education Requirements: High school diploma or equivalent Career Overview: Career Overview: Solar photovoltaic installers assemble, install and maintain photovoltaic (PV) systems that convert sunlight into energy. These systems might be needed in commercial, industrial or residential settings. Some are installed on rooftops; others sprawl on the ground.

Solar photovoltaic installers plan out PV system configurations based on site conditions and their customers’ needs. Once a PV system is installed, the technicians hook it up to the electrical system and apply weather sealant to the equipment exposed to the elements. PV installers then test the system to ensure everything works properly.

Sometimes, installers connect the PV system to the grid, but in other cases, electricians are called in. Solar photovoltaic installers must be comfortable using a variety of power tools on the job, such as drills, wrenches, saws and screwdrivers.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About the Fastest-Growing Careers

What is the fastest-growing occupation.

Wind turbine service technicians claim the title as the fastest-growing occupation over the decade. The BLS estimates an average growth rate of 45% between 2022 and 2032, which is significantly faster than the national average across other occupations.

What are the five careers that are the fastest-growing?

The five fastest-growing careers are wind turbine service technicians, nurse practitioners, data scientists, statisticians and information security analysts.

What is the number one job that pays the most?

According to the BLS, several types of physicians and surgeons—such as cardiologists, oral and maxillofacial surgeons, radiologists and emergency medicine physicians—were tied for the highest-paid jobs in the U.S. as of 2022. All of these high-earning medical professionals make median annual salaries exceeding $239,000 per year.

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Cecilia is a freelance writer, content marketing strategist and author covering education, technology and energy. She is a current contributor to the Forbes Advisor education vertical and holds a summa cum laude journalism degree from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.