Introduction
There is growing concern for the biting shortage of nurses in the National Health Care Association. As such, it is important to retain the existing nurses within the workforce. Job retention is dependent in many employee-related factors. The National Health Care Association commissioned a study the degree of job satisfaction for nurses in various hospitals throughout the country. The data were collected from private hospitals, veteran administration hospitals and University hospitals. The following report highlights various elements of the study.
Levels of Satisfaction
A look into the entire dataset and the three variables of job satisfaction that are measured in the study reveals certain elements of job satisfaction. For instance, an analysis of the mean of the three variables shows that the most satisfying variable was work. This evidence by the highest mean (79.8) of the three variables. This implies that of the three variables, nurses around the country were more satisfied in their work that in their pay or promotion. The least satisfying variable for the nurses around the country was the pay.
This implies that the nurses regard their remunerations as inadequate. The remuneration and promotion are at times linked. This is because the promotion to a higher job group results in increased remuneration. However, the promotion to a higher job group heaps more responsibility on an employee, something that calls for increased compensation. Improvements are required in the promotion and pay variables. From the study, it is evident that nurses love their profession. Retaining them in the healthcare system is important in order to retain nurses. As such, promotion criteria should be reviewed so that they are equitable and done on merit. Additionally, the remuneration of nurses should be reviewed as it ranked the least satisfying variable of the three.
Differences in Opinions
Descriptive measures of variability are important in describing the various variables of job satisfaction. For instance, an analysis of the dataset using descriptive measures of variability can tell the differences in opinion between the variables, and where the difference is greatest (Ott & Longnecker, 2010). The standard deviation, variance and range are appropriate descriptive measures of variability for this data set. Of the three variables measured in the study, promotion had the biggest standard deviation at 15.9, variance at 255.9 and range at 76. With regards to standard deviation and variance, the figures show that the data from the promotion variable was spread farthest from the middle of the distribution curve.
With regards to range, the data from the promotion variable had the largest difference between the maximum score and minimum score (Ott, & Longnecker, 2010). This implies that this variable elicited the greatest degree of difference in the opinions expressed by the nurses in the various hospitals sampled in the country. This finding can be explained by the fact that the respondents might be in different job groups, hence the variability in the responses regarding this variable. From these findings, any efforts towards the increase of job satisfaction should not be limited to certain types of hospitals, but should affect nurses in all hospitals since their grievances are similar.
Trends in the Levels of Satisfaction with Regard to Hospital Types
Learning about Job Satisfaction
Other descriptive statistics can be used in learning the various aspects of job satisfaction and consequently how to improve it in the labor force. For instance, this study revealed that pay was the least satisfying variable among the variables that were measured in the study. It would be interesting to understand the precise elements of pay that were the least satisfying. Is it the frequency with which pay increments are effected? Is it the basic salary or the allowances? Understanding these factors is important to further understanding the element of pay, as the least satisfying variable. Descriptive statistics like measures of central tendency are important in describing population samples in these studies (Ott, & Longnecker, 2010).
Conclusion
The study by the National Health Care Association was commissioned to look into issues of job satisfaction for the nurses. This was warranted by the biting shortage of nurses in health care facilities and the need to retain the existing nursing staff. The analysis of the data set from the study shows the pay as the lest satisfying element. Any efforts towards improving job satisfaction should first address the aspect of pay. However, there is a need for efforts to address all the variables so that satisfaction is achieved all round.
References
Ott, L., & Longnecker, M. (2010). An introduction to statistical methods and data analysis. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning.
