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DAYTON, Ohio -- For decades, employees and employers alike have followed the motto that job satisfaction determines job performance. Not so, according to a new study by Wright State University.
Nathan Bowling, an assistant professor who specializes in industrial and organizational psychology, said three decades of data derived from thousands of employees in a cross-section of jobs -- blue collar and white collar -- prove that although job satisfaction and job performance do correlate, one does not cause the other.
Even researchers, Bowling said, get confused about how the two things connect.
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"On days when ice cream sales are high, the number of crimes committed will also tend to be high, but this doesn't mean that ice cream sales cause crime," he said. "Rather, ice cream sales and crime are related because each is the result of the outdoor temperature. Similarly, satisfaction and performance are related because each is the result of employee personality."
By personality, Bowling pointed to such characteristics as self-esteem, emotional stability, extroversion and conscientiousness.
Studies, Bowling said, show that employees who have an overall negative attitude to all things in life likely won't find job satisfaction, regardless of performance, because of their personality characteristics.
"Emotional stability matters a lot," he said. "People who are neurotic, those who tend to be anxious, depressed ... typically won't find satisfaction no matter how many jobs they try."
The same goes for those with low self-esteem, he added. Studies show that employees with high self-esteem tend to be more satisfied with their jobs than those who do not have that level of confidence.
"Simply put, workplace interventions designed to improve performance by exclusively targeting employee satisfaction are unlikely to be effective," Bowling said.
So how can you have both?
"There are ways to select employees who will be successful," Bowling said. "Studies show that intelligence is one of the things that drives the performance."
He said solid performing employees also exhibit a high level of conscientiousness -- those who are detail-oriented and hard workers and who set goals.
