The Effects of Workplace Dimensions on Job Satisfaction and Organisational Commitment

Abstract

The retail industry of India, in spite of having exponential growth potential, has been severely affected of store-level employee turnover at the rate of 60-80% for a long time. Retention of front-line employees, who constitute about 85% of the retail workforce, has been a perennial cause of worry for the retail operators. The purpose of this paper is to understand the mental disposition of front-line employees with regard to workplace dimensions such as routinisation, social support factors (peer support and supervisor support) and job stress factors (workload, role ambiguity, and role conflict) in determining their job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Though the result confirms that a change in job satisfaction can significantly influence organisational commitment of employees, the descriptive statistics indicate that front-line employees, in spite of having low job stress, moderate routinisation, high job satisfaction and moderately high social support, would not remain committed to their organisation. The negative correlation between job satisfaction and organisational commitment hints at the possibility of exit of employees from their current organisations in the nearest future. This indicates that retail operators should urgently revamp their human resource policies and structurally empower their employees providing ongoing opportunities for development to enhance job satisfaction and commitment.

Keywords: Routinisation, Social Support, Job Stress, Job Satisfaction and Organisational Commitment

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