high talent employees, hope and job satisfaction
TRANSCRIPT
High Talent Employees, Hope and Job Satisfaction
Gavin SussInnovation Center
Keter Group
Literature
Hope, Optimism, Positive Psychology, Meaning,
Positive Organizational Behavior (POB), Job
Satisfaction
Restoration of hope and meaning is important
for both people and organizations, with the
latter benefiting from employees with a sense
of high hope. Positive psychology is an excellent
tool to achieve that goal, as it can help foster
optimism, hope and meaning.
Hope and optimism are
both predictive of physical
and mental health,
with high hope people
healthier, happier and
better able to cope with
stress and problem
solving.
Both hope and optimism are correlated with
learning, achievement, positive relationships,
health, satisfaction with life and wellbeing
MethodMeasures
Demographics - Gender, age and seniority at the company.
The Adult Hope Scale (AHS) - The adult hope scale (AHS) measures Snyder's cognitive model of hope (Snyder et al., 1991) and contains 12 items with participants responding to each item using a 8-point scale ranging from 1 (definitely false) to 8 (definitely true). Four items measure pathways thinking (e.g., "There are lots of ways around any problem") and four measures agency thinking (e.g., "I energetically pursue my goals"), with the remaining four of the items acting as fillers.
3. Job Satisfaction – Job satisfaction was
measured using the following statements: (1) “I
am pleased with my career”, (2) “I am
performing the best I can in my job” and (3) “My
work adds value to the company
H1: High talent employees express high views of
hope
Average hope scores were higher for high talent
employees, in compare to the entire data set,
with scores of 25.89, 25.09 and 50.98 for
pathways thinking, agency thinking and overall
scores respectively, all close to the high end of their
scales scale scored.
Table 1. Ranges, means and standard deviations of main
variables.
Satisfaction domain Range Mean Standard Deviation
Pathways thinking 13.00-31.00 25.89 3.71
Agency thinking 12.00-31.00 25.09 3.91
General hope scale 29.00-60.00 50.98 7.10
Job satisfaction 2.00-8.00 6.26 1.24
H2: Employees with high hope believe they are
more successful in their job and add value to
the organization were they work.
Table 2. Correlations between Job Satisfaction items and Hope.
Statement Pathways Thinking Agency Thinking General Hope scale
Job Satisfaction 0.777** 0.773** 0.832**
I am pleased with my career 0.596** 0.609** 0.647**
I am performing the best I can in my job 0.712** 0.722** 0.771**
My work adds value to the company 0.700** 0.667** 0.734**
**p<0.01
Strong and positive correlations were found
between hope and job satisfaction. Specifically,
job satisfaction was found to correlate with
pathways thinking (r=0.78, p<0.01), agency
thinking (r=0.77, p<0.01) and general hope scale
(r=0.83, p<0.01).
Gender and associations between hope and
Job satisfaction
To examine gender differences in the
associations between hope and job satisfaction,
sex specific Pearson correlations were
conducted as presented in table 3:
Table 3. Correlations between Job Satisfaction items
and Hope for men (upper) and women (lower)
Statement Pathways Thinking Agency Thinking General Hope scale
Job Satisfaction
0.774**
0.656**
0.773**
0.684**
0.802**
0.798**
I am pleased with my career
0.571**
0.455**
0.500**
0.714**
0.553**
0.699**
I am performing the best I can in my job
0.727**
0.480**
0.813**
0.455**
0.802**
0.557**
My work adds value to the company
0.659**
0.712**
0.664**
0.519**
0.686**
0.731**
).
Positive and strong correlations were found
between job satisfaction items and hope factors
for both men and women
Age and associations between hope and job
satisfaction
To examine differences between age ranges in
the associations between hope and job satisfaction,
Pearson correlations were conducted separately for
each age group.
Table 4. Correlations between Job Satisfaction items and Hope
for employees till 30 (N=17; upper), 30-35 (N=25; middle) and
35-50 (N=12; lower).
Pathways Thinking Agency Thinking General Hope scale
Job Satisfaction
0.787**
0.627**
0.701**
0.872**
0.691**
0.425
0.905**
0.705**
0.585*
I am pleased with my career
0.677**
0.358
0.795**
0.838**
0.396
0.551
0.832**
0.403*
0.704*
I am performing the best I can in my job
0.746**
0.490*
0.599*
0.772**
0.604**
0.575
0.825**
0.587**
0.623*
My work adds value to the company
0.767**
0.631**
0.134
0.835**
0.642**
-0.173
0.873**
0.680**
-0.036
**p<0.01
Among the age groups, employees younger than 30
years-old showed the strongest positive
correlations between job satisfaction items and
hope factors (Table 4). This was most prominent for
the statement “I am pleased with my career” for
which employees at 30 or younger showed high and
strong correlations with hope factors, employees of
30-35 showed no correlations with pathways
thinking or agency thinking and only relatively
moderate correlation with general hope scale.
To further examine age and gender differences
in the correlation of hope factors and job
satisfaction two separate MANOVA analyses
were computed.
No differences were found
A high sense of hope was found to correspond
with high job satisfaction, as well as strong sense of
performance and contributing to the company. In
addition, for both men and women, positive and
strong correlations were found between job
satisfaction items and hope factors. Employees
aged 30 or below showed the strongest positive
correlations between job satisfaction items and
hope factors.
“One of the catalysis for the concentrated
effort and vigorous activity that is needed to
fulfill an organization’s purpose is the
phenomenon of hope”(Helland & Winston, 2005 p. 43).
This view is supported by the results presented
here, which show that high talent employees have a
high sense of hope and that this corresponds with
high job satisfaction, a strong sense of performance
and contributing to the company, all of which is
important for success of the organization.
Positive psychology and its application in the workplace as
POB attempts to give a renewed emphasis (not a
revolution or paradigm shift) to the importance of a
positive approach to make the most of talent in
organizations.
Last slide
Organizations should seek to employee high
Talent employees as this study confirms that
High talent employees have a high sense of
Hope that is translated into job satisfaction and
a sense of contribution to the company, which is
presumable beneficial for the host organization.