Importance of Attitude and Job Satisfaction in Workplace

Attitude is not always in line with Behaviors. When the difference called cognitive distance occurs, employees would act to adjust their behaviors to their modified attitude. As employees’ attitude, or more specifically level of job satisfaction, would give rise to various types of outcomes in workplace, management should arouse attention to these tradeoffs employee are making in order to maintain their business performance.

Good job performance could be the primary effect of job satisfaction. According to National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 1997), a positive connection between teachers’ job satisfaction and their teaching quality has been evidenced in the U.S. NCES also indicated that a positive school atmosphere, more administrative support and good student behavior are all associated with higher teacher satisfaction (NCES, 1997).

Apart that, low turnover rate could be another positive outcome. Employees are important in the operation of business. Employees nowadays have been given great flexibility in changing their jobs. Business cannot afford the damage caused by high employ turnover - high replacement cost, attitude of remaining employees and eventually reduced productivity. Studies on organizational behavior have suggested a way to reduce employee turnover rate by increasing their job satisfaction. In India, Randhawa (2007) has recently found a strong negative correlation between job satisfaction and turnover intention. He indicated that highly satisfied employees always showed higher loyalties to their organizations, which ensured the effective operation of organizations.

Moreover, level of employees’ job satisfaction reflects the level of absenteeism. Josias (2005) suggested a strong reverse relationship between job satisfaction levels and the number of days employees stay absent. He also found a significant inverse relationship between job satisfaction levels and the number of times employees remained