Staff Work Satisfaction: An Analysis of the Unexamined Majority in Academia

Abstract

Higher education is a labor-intensive industry (Johnsrud, 2002; Levin, 1991). As in any other organization, understanding what satisfies its personnel is essential for improving productivity. However, how staff members perceive, respond, and behave to pay, benefit, and other workplace-related issues has not been studied with as much intensity as for faculty groups. Their jobs in academia are becoming increasingly professionalized: important for supporting academic productivity and managing administrative efficiency.

Given the classical duality theory by Herzberg (1959) and existing models for administrative job satisfaction (Volkwein & Zhou, 2003), this paper investigates how seniority and job category explain the satisfaction of staff members, as well as with other factors at a large, public, research-intensive institution. The data used are from a biennial system-wide employment satisfaction survey and analyzed using multiple linear regression. Out of 18,719 invitees for the 2010 survey, Instructional Professionals and Administrators and other Staff represent 79% of the survey population.