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Are More Competent Workers More Satisfied?
Author(s) -
De Grip Andries,
Sieben Inge,
Stevens Fred
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
labour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.403
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1467-9914
pISSN - 1121-7081
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9914.2009.00463.x
Subject(s) - remuneration , job satisfaction , competence (human resources) , psychology , pharmacy , vocational education , job performance , affect (linguistics) , context (archaeology) , job design , medical education , applied psychology , business , social psychology , nursing , medicine , pedagogy , paleontology , communication , finance , biology
. In this paper, we analyse the relationship between workers' competencies and their job satisfaction in the context of dual (i.e. vocational versus communicative) skill demands. We analyse the effects of workers' competencies on their overall, intrinsic, and extrinsic job satisfaction. We focus on pharmacy assistants who need both pharmaceutical and communicative competencies in their work. Results from a linked employer–employee survey show that assistants with more communicative competencies are more satisfied with their job, whereas assistants with more pharmaceutical competencies are not more satisfied than the less competent assistants. In addition, workers who perform tasks below their level of competence are more dissatisfied with both their remuneration and career prospects and the content of their job as such, than were other workers. Our results indicate that the demand shift from vocational towards communication skills, which occurs in many professions, can affect the job satisfaction of the most competent workers.