Analysis ofrelationship between job satisfaction and performance of field employee: A case study in PT. Trisna Naga Asih

R.A.P.N. Suharto, A. Novieningtyas & S. Dwikardana

Faculty of Economy Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung, Indonesia

ABSTRACT: This study was aimed to examine the relationship of job satisfaction with the performance of field employees of PT.

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

A dynamic business environment requires every company to have an advantage so that it will be able to survive in the market competition. In order to win that competition, the company needs financial cap­ital, machinery, technology, and fixed capital. How­ever, it cannot be denied that in a capital company, the most important is intangible capital in the form of human capital. Human capital is human resources that support the company in achieving its goals.

Human resources are very important for the organization because any activity in the organization must be related to humans. Without any human inter­vention, the company may not be able to achieve the desired goals. In the process of achieving its goals, each company certainly expects all the employees to be willing and able to work diligently, and have a positive attitude towards their work in order to pro­duce optimal performance in terms of quantity and quality being achieved as expected (Khan 2010).

In order to achieve the optimal performance, it needs to be supported by a high willingness to work. Working capabilities are in line with the content of work, a comfortable work environment, income that can meet the minimum living needs, adequate social security, human working conditions, and a harmoni­ous working relationship. Therefore, optimal per­formance ultimately grows from the way and attitude of work (Suwatno & Tjutju 2013).

One of the scopes of human resource manage­ment discusses matters relating to employees’ job satisfaction. Employees’ job satisfaction is a factor that is considered important as it can affect the overall organization or company. For the employees, job satisfaction is an individual factor and a tool to achieve maximum productivity and performance.

McCormick & Tiffin (2002) stated that job sat­isfaction is closely related to one’s attitude towards their own work. The higher level of sat­isfaction of a person will be reflected from his/ her positive work attitude. Conversely, dissatis­faction with one’s work will lead to a negative work attitude. Positive and negative attitudes of a person follow the level of perceived job satisfac­tion. A person with a high level of job satisfac­tion shows a positive attitude towards work, while someone who is not satisfied with his/her job tends to show a negative attitude towards work (Robbins & Judge 2015).

PT. Trisna Naga Asih is an organization that has human resources as their main asset. According to Mello (2011), asset is something of value and worth or something that has value and meaning. High values possessed by humans will produce high value for the organization because humans with high value will produce a high contribution to the achievement of organizational goals. Therefore, it is unavoidable for the company to be able to manage assets that are owned properly so that employees can optimally per­form the capabilities they have.

One thing that can be done by the company to encourage employees so they can provide max­imum performance for the company is by filling employee satisfaction.

Therefore, satisfaction is an evaluation that describes a person’s feeling whether they are happy or not and whether they are satisfied or dissatisfied with their work. Employees’ job satisfaction is also affected by several factors such as salary, benefits and facilities, supervisor and subordinate relation­ships, relationships between colleagues, opportunity development, work safety, organizational policies, and work performance (Spector 1997).

PT. Trisna Naga Asih is one of the companies in West Java that manages fruit plantations with the main activity of producing dragon fruit. PT. Krisna Naga Asih is also a supplier of various types of dragon fruits such as red, black, and yellow dragon fruit. The main activity of the company is produ­cing dragon fruit. Accordingly, employees are required to be able to meet production targets in each harvest season. Enterprises in the plantation sector are productive work fields that carry out vari­ous production activities to achieve results and this sector certainly requires a lot of labor (Pasal 27 ayat 1 UUD 1945).

PT. Trisna Naga Asih always strives to provide the best quality dragon fruit. In addition to its main goal of achieving production targets, PT. Trisna Naga Asih also hopes that its employees can produce good quality dragon fruit. The Director explained that good quality dragon fruit criteria are larger than the size of dragon fruit in general. This large dragon fruit has a high selling value when compared to medium-sized dragon fruit. This larger dragon fruit is sold by the company to the premium market under the brand name “Naga Geulis”.

In order to achieve these targets, field employees must carefully tend and control plants in each block as their responsibility.

According to the results of an unstructured inter­view with the Director as a preliminary research by the author, it was said that for several times, the company had not been able to meet the company’s target. He added that apart from natural factors, the impact of the lack of rigor and patience of field employees in selecting superior seeds and caring for dragon fruit plants caused less optimal yields because the selection and treatment process is one of the important factors that determine the growth of the dragon fruit. It was also explained that field employees were less diligent in caring for dragon fruit plants based on the reports from the head of the block and direct events encountered by the Dir­ector as he often saw some field employees doing things that were not their work during working hours, such as sitting around casually and chatting during working hours when the field workers are not in the block. During working hours, the field employees should have a commitment and respon­sibility to control and provide care for dragon fruits in each block which is their responsibility. It was also explained that the problem had become a big concern for the company as it is able to disturb company’s activities and interrupt the achievement of organizational goals if it is not immediately resolved. On the other hand, in one year, it was reported that some employees request for an increase on their salaries, yet it is still being considered.

Referring to Judge et al. (2001) when we move from the individual level to the organizational level, there is a room for the relationship between satisfac­tion and work performance.

Based on the description above, the authors are interested in examining whether there is a relation­ship between the employees’ job satisfaction and their job performance by taking the title of research “Analysis of the Relationship between Job Satisfac­tion and Performance of Field Employees in PT. Trisna Naga Asih”.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Job satisfaction

Spector (1997) defines job satisfaction as an “atti­tude that describes how a person feels about his work as a whole or on various aspects of his work”. Wexley & Yukl (1977) added that “Job satisfaction is the way an employee feels about his or her job”. Thus, job satisfaction refers to a generalization of the attitude of employees towards their work based on aspects of their work.

A person’s attitude towards his work reflects a pleasant or unattractive experience in his work and his hopes for future experiences. Luthans (2006) pro­vides a definition of job satisfaction which includes cognitive, affective, and evaluative reactions or atti­tudes and states that job satisfaction is “a happy emotional state or positive emotion that comes from an assessment of work or someone’s work experience”.

Luthans (2006) then concluded that there are two important things in job satisfaction that includes work values and basic needs. Work values are the goals to be achieved that are important and that must be appropriate or helpful to fulfill basic needs.

Therefore, it can be inferred from the explanation above that job satisfaction is an attitude, feeling, and emotion of the employees about their works.

2.2 Theory of job satisfaction

Basically job satisfaction is an individual-specific matter. By looking at the psychological side of indi­vidual employees, there are 3 well-known job satis­faction theories, namely (Rivai 2011): (1) Equity theory; Robbins & Judge (2015) said that an individ­ual will be satisfied or dissatisfied depending on the presence of justice in the work situation. This theory has some main components that cover input, result, justice, and injustice. Input is a valuable factor for employees who are considered being able to support their work, such as education, experience, skills, number of tasks, and equipment used to carry out their work. Result is something that is valuable for the employees, such as wages/salaries, side benefits, symbols, status, rewards, and opportunities for suc­cess or self-actualization. At the same time, people will always compare someone’s progress at the same company or in the other company or it can be him­self from the past. Every employee will compare their input ratio with the other employees’ input ratio. If the comparison is considered fair, the employee will be satisfied. In contrast, if the com­parison is perceived as unfair, it can cause dissatis­faction among employees.

Second is Discrepancy theory. This theory was discovered by Porter and was developed by Locke, and thus it is familiar as Locke’s Value Theory. Porter measured someone’s job satisfaction by calcu­lating the difference between something that is sup­posed to be and the perceived reality. However, according to Locke, an individual feels satisfied or dissatisfied is something personal, depending on how he/she perceives the suitability or conflict between his/her desires and the reality (Munandar 2001). So, from discrepancy theory, job satisfaction is related to the difference or conflict between all aspects of work that is owned and all aspects desired, indicating that the greater the difference, the smaller the satisfaction of employees. On the other hand, the smaller the difference, the employee will be more satisfied. Thus, employees will feel satisfied if there is no difference between what they want and percep­tion of reality.

The last theory is Two Factor theory. The theory was first developed by Frederick Herzberg who sees that job satisfaction comes from intrinsic motivators and job dissatisfaction comes from the absence of extrinsic factors (Gibson et al. 1996). According to Herzberg, intrinsic factors are related to job satisfac­tion. The factors are characterized as motivation factor, such as achievement, recognition, responsibil­ity, advancement, work itself, and possibility of growth (cited in Munandar 2001). Fulfilment of these factors will lead to employees’ satisfaction, but not fulfilling these factors doesn’t always lead to dissatisfaction.

On the other hand, extrinsic factors that tend to cause dissatisfaction are characterized by Herzberg as hygiene factors, such as salary, job security, work­ing condition, status, company policy and adminis­tration, supervision, and interpersonal relations (Munandar, 2001). These factors are needed to fulfill the biological drive and basic needs of the employ­ees. If this factor is not sufficiently fulfilled, employ­ees will not be satisfied. However, if the magnitude of this factor is sufficient to fulfill the needs, employ­ees will not be disappointed even if they are not satisfied.

2.3 Dimensions of job satisfaction

Job satisfaction that is felt by the employees is derived from several dimensions. Luthans (2006) stated 5 dimensions of job satisfaction: the work itself, payment, supervision, co-workers, and oppor­tunity to have promotion.

2.4 Performance

Basically, the definition of performance can be inter­preted in many ways. Some experts view perform­ance as the result of work, but the others believed that attitude is important to achieve the desired results. In order to clear the meaning of performance, some understandings of performance are explained below. The following are understandings of perform­ance according to some experts.

Armstrong & Baron (1998) explained more com­prehensive opinion such as:

“Performance means both behaviours and results. Behaviours emanate from the performer and trans­form performance from abstraction to action. Not just the instruments for results, behaviours are also outcomes in their own right - the product of mental and physical effort applied to tasks - and can be judge apart from results.”

Besides emphasizing results, the above under­standing also sees behavior as part of performance. According to Armstrong & Baron (1998), behavior is important as it will affect the work of an employee.

From the opinion above, performance can be seen from the result of perspective and process or an atti­tude that leads to achieve the desired goals.

2.5 Factors of performance

Anguinis (2009) said that there are 3 factors that determine performance: (1) Declarative Knowledge, is knowledge or information about work facts, tasks to be carried out, principles in work, and goals to be achieved, (2) Procedural Knowledge that refers to the combination between knowledge and how to do the works. This includes cognitive skill, psycho­motor, physical, and interpersonal skill, and (3) Motivation that is referred to individual behavior in work, such as the desire to work and how the indi­vidual attempts to do work. All the factors have multiplicative relations:

Performance = Declarative Knowledge ? Proced­ural Knowledge ? Motivation.

If one of the factors has a 0 value, the perform­ance will also have 0 value. Therefore, the three fac­tors above are very important in assessing individual performance.

2.6 Dimensions of performance

Evaluating employees’ performance is not only car­ried out by assessing physical results, but also assessing work performance that covers various fields such as work ability, crafts, discipline, work relationships, and other things according to the level of work and their work fields. Anguinis (2009) explained that performance is multidimensional meaning that it is necessary to consider various types of behavior to understand performance itself. Anguinis identifies performance such as:

- Task Performance, it is the main activity of a job, such as converting raw materials into finished goods. Besides that, task performance is the activ­ity that supports the other main activities such as managing product supply, distributing the product, planning, making coordination, doing supervision and another effective and efficient staff function. Task performance includes some of the work per­formances: (a) Employees know what to do, (b) Employees do what they have to do, (c) Employ­ees follow all the work steps, and (d) Employees understand the work they have to do.

- Contextual Performance in this case is working by making extra effort and by working happily; do the work that are not part of voluntary work; follow organizational rules and procedures; approve, sup­port, and defend/maintain organizational goals. Contextual performance involved some of work performance such as: (a) Enthusiasm, (b) Effort, (c) Following the rules, working hard, having initiative, and fulfilling the production target.

3 METHOD

The study was set as an explanatory research. In this research, the hypothesis was tested to explain the rela­tionship between job satisfaction and employees’ job performance. This research employed quantitative approach that specifically emphasized in measuring variables and proving hypothesis related to the explanation of the relationship. This research used descriptive data analysis to describe the variables about job satisfaction and performance of the employees.

3.1 Population

The population in this research is 68 field employees of PT. Trisna Naga Asih.

3.2 Types and data sources

There are two types of data sources used in this research: (1) Primary data that were obtained from the interview with the Director of PT. Trisna Naga Asih, questionnaires that were distributed directly to the respondents, and also from field observations. (2) Secondary data were collected from books, literature studies, lecture material, scientific journals, the result of similar studies, data provided by the com­pany, and some of the data obtained from the Internet.

3.3 Data collection techniques

The data of the study were collected through some techniques as follows: (1) Literature survey that was carried out by using written sources such as refer­ence, scientific journals, and the results of the similar research to make theoretical basics and also to make the framework. Researchers examined other trusted sources either in writing or in digital format that are relevant and related to the study. The data were then used as study materials and as comparisons to expand the research, (2) Interview, researchers con­ducted an unstructured interview with the Director of PT. Trisna Naga Asih as well as several field employees to find out more about the company’s condition, as the initial stage of research data collec­tion. This process helps find problems of the research, (3) Questionnaire, the study employed closed questionnaire in the form of physical ques­tionnaire through which respondents chose the answer in the questionnaire, (4) Observation, this step was conducted by either by direct observation by visiting the research object and by observing the work environment or activity to find out the employ­ee’s behavior. The observation was also employed to find information that actually happened in PT. Trisna Naga Asih.

3.4 Validity

From 34 statements, the sig.r item is less than 0.05 (α = 0.05), indicating that each item variable is valid and can be used to measure the research variables.

3.5 Reliability

The decision-making criteria is if the value of alpha reliability coefficient gives a number greater than the passing criteria α: ≥0.6, then the variable is reliable. Alpha coefficient of job satisfaction is 0.874 andper- formance is 0.854. From the provisions mentioned earlier, all the variables used for this study can be considered reliable.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Descriptive analysis of job satisfaction

In the job satisfaction variable, five indicators were presented, such the work, payment, supervision, co­workers, and opportunity of promotion.

Based on Table 1, it can be seen that most respondents agree with the statements listed in the job satisfaction variable. It can be concluded that most employees have got job satisfaction at PT. Trisna Naga Asih.

4.2 Descriptive analysis of performance

The employees’ performance was seen from two indicators, namely task performance and contextual performance.

Table 2 revealed that most respondents agree with the statements offered in the performance variable. Thus, it can be concluded that most of the employees feel that they have performed optimally for the company.

4.3 The relationship between performance and job satisfaction

The statistical calculation of Spearman correlation test resulted significant value (2-tailed) output of above 0.01. This value is smaller than the signifi­cance with a value of α = 5% or 0.05. Based on these results, Ho is rejected; Ho’s statement that

Table 1. Answer frequency distribution job satisfaction variable.

Source: Questionnaire Data.

Table 2. Frequency distribution of answer category.

Source: Questionnaire Data.

“There is no relationship between job satisfactions with the performance of employees of PT. Trisna Naga Asih” is rejected in this study. This indicates that there is a relationship between job satisfaction and the performance of employees of PT. Trisna Naga Asih.

5 CONCLUSION

- Generally, the results showed that the perception of field employees towards their job satisfaction at PT. Trisna Naga Asih is quite good. It means, the employee is quite satisfied with the company. However, some of the field employees claimed to be less satisfied with the company, especially in the dimensions of salary and supervision.

- Perception of field employees towards their per­formance at PT. Trisna Naga Asih is quite good. Field employees feel that they have provided a pretty good performance to the company. How­ever, there are still some field employees who confessed that sometimes they make mistakes during their working hours.

- This research has revealed that job satisfaction has a positive relationship with the field employ­ees’ performance of PT. Trisna Naga Asih that can be proven by correlation coefficients +0.607, indicating that there is a strong correlation between job satisfaction and employee performance.

The results of this study confirmed theories and findings from previous research stating that there is a positive relationship between job satisfaction and employees’ performance.

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