Satisfaction for health care employees: a quest for the Holy Grail?

This article proposes that, across industries, too much has been made of the importance of job satisfaction and its impact on organizational effectiveness. In addition, so much attention has been directed toward satisfaction that many health care employees, particularly nurses, now expect job satisfaction from their employers as an entitlement. In nursing, feelings about job satisfaction may, in fact, be exacerbated by the idealism which leads the young person entering the field to expect to be in a "helping profession" where workers almost automatically encounter the satisfaction that comes from giving the help which the patient desperately needs. Faced with the realities of long hours, grueling and often menial tasks, and sometimes churlish patients and physicians, the young nurse may, in fact, enter a period of deep dissatisfaction and of questioning nursing as a career choice. This situation is not unique to nurses. Many health care professionals face equally dissatisfying aspects of their jobs. Our focus is primarily on reducing job dissatisfaction, rather than improving job satisfaction, through practical solutions for those charged with attracting and retaining health care employees during tight labor markets.