Effect of Employee Satisfaction of Driving Customer Satisfaction Essay

â€Å"Its common sense when people feel great about the place where they work†¦ they provide better customer service† Dick Clark, Group leader of Financial services at Monsanto Customer satisfaction is the main aim of every organization running a business everywhere. Various level managers consider the importance of customer satisfaction and try to pass this issue to the lower levels that have direct contact with the customers. Those front-line employees should be satisfied themselves in order to deliver customer value. (bulgarella, 2005). Some researchers and business pioneers went further to include employees as â€Å"internal customers† whom they seek to satisfy their needs in order to make sure that they will do the same with the external customers (Harrison, 2003) and this highlights the direction towards the study on the employee satisfaction and its factors. In Egypt, employee satisfaction should be one of the most highlighted topics in every business field and should gain wider interest day after day. The emphasis on these kinds of studies will help improve the service standards and, consequently, raises the satisfaction levels of employees and external customers of any organization. From this perspective, the researchers decided to investigate the sense of career development and its effect on employee satisfaction (Research1 or R1). The second part of the research will be devoted to measure the effect of employee satisfaction on delivering customer satisfaction (Research2 or R2). The main research questions are designed as: Q1: How can the sense of career development affect employee satisfaction? Q2: what is the effect of employee satisfaction on customer satisfaction? Hypotheses: H1: Sense of career development has an effect on employee satisfaction. * Components of career development on this research paper are: * Quality of Employees ‘Lives. * Social and economic contribution to society. H2: sense of employee satisfactions affects Customer satisfaction. R1: The relation between sense of career development and employee satisfaction. When the researchers decided to define employee satisfaction, they called back the definition of the word â€Å"satisfaction† from the dictionary and it was found as â€Å"gratification of an appetite and pleasure† (Wilson Learning, 2006). Satisfaction researchers can never ignore Maslow’s human satisfaction pyramid that starts with physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, self-esteem and self-actualization needs (Parvin, 2011) Scholars vary in their definitions to employee satisfaction; Reilly defines job satisfaction as â€Å"the feeling that a worker has about his job or a general attitude towards work or a job and it is influenced by the perception of one’s job†. (C.R.Reilly, 1991). Some employee-satisfaction theories depends mainly on the individual factor or the employee himself; employee’s objectives, age, social status, gender and education level have the major impact on determining the degree of his satisfaction and loyalty in his job (Ann, 1992) while others, such as Alan Witt, go in deeper analysis to study â€Å"Fit or Lack of Fit† or the â€Å"Want-Have Dilemma† between the employee’s requirements and the organizational offerings (Ann, 1992) Papers agree on a main drive for employee satisfaction in any organization; employers must work on enhancing the sense of career development for their employees. However, career development itself is a broad concept that needs to be clarified. Sears defined career development as the total group of physiological, sociological, educational, physical and economic factors that direct the individual’s career (Patton & McMahon, 2006). This definition classifies the components career deve lopment to: 1. Physiological component 2. Sociological component 3. Educational component 4. Physical component 5. Economic component When going to a deeper practical definition, Careers England, one of the most recognized organizations in career guidance industry that has a wide variety of partnerships with various associations (Careers England, 2012), defined career development as follows: â€Å"Career development is the lifelong process of managing progression in learning and work. The quality of this process significantly determines the nature and quality of individuals’ lives: the kind of people they become, the sense of purpose they have, the income at their disposal. It also determines the social and economic contribution they make to the communities and societies of which they are part† (Careers England, 2012) This definition analysis â€Å"Career Development† terminology to the following components * Quality of individuals’ lives * Social and economic contribution to society When linking both definitions together, the researchers can identify the main components of career development to two main categories 1. Quality of individual lives: a. Salary paid to employees b. working conditions c. physiological and safety needs d. the purpose they have 2. Contribution to society * Achievements and contribution to society economically and socially R2: the relation between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. To measure the degree of employee satisfaction’s effect on customer satisfaction, the meaning of customer satisfaction should be clear for the researches and the readers; A comprehensive definition of customer satisfaction in terms of pleasurable fulfillment is given by Oliver (1997): â€Å"satisfaction is the consumer’s fulfillment response. It is a judgment that a product or service feature, or the product or service itself, providing (or is providing) a pleasurable level of consumption-related fulfillment, including under or over fulfillment† (Siskos, 2010) According to an exhaustive review of Yi (1991), customer satisfaction may be defined into 2 basic ways: either as an outcome, or as a process: 1- The first approach defines satisfaction as a final situation or as an end-state resulting from the consumption experience. 2- The second approach emphasizes the perceptual, evaluative and psychological process that contributes to satisfaction. (Siskos, 2010) (R2) will try to measure the degree of dependence of both factors on each other through surveys with employees and customers. Bibliography Ann, M. (1992). A STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIP. SOUTHWEST TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY, Political Science. Texas: The Digital Library. attia, s. (2008). Healthcare quality and moder. emerald insight, 3. bulgarella, C. (2005). Employee Satisfaction & Customer Satisfaction. Guide Star rerearch. C.R.Reilly. (1991). Organizational Behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, pp. 427- 458. Careers England. (2012). MAKING A POSITIVE IMPACT. Careers England. Careers England. Careers England. (2012). Why Career Development Matters. 1. Harrison, C. (2003, 11). Turning Customer Service Inside Out! Retrieved 10 1, 2012, from expressionsofexcellence.com: http://www.expressionsofexcellence.com/ARTICLES/InsideCS.html Parvin, M. (2011, December). FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEE JOB SATISFACTION OF PHARMACEUTICAL SECTOR. Australian Journal of Business and Management Research, 1, 115. Patton, W., & McMahon, M. (2006). Career Development and Systems Theory. QueensLand university, Faculty of Education. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Siskos, E. G. (2010). Customer Satisfaction Evaluation. Greece: Springer Science+Business Media. Wilson Learning. (2006). Redefining employee satisfaction: business performance, employee fullfilment and leadership practices. Edina: Wilson Learning Inc.