SATISFACTION FROM FACULTY MEMBERS’ PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

In Thailand, there are four pillars of duties for faculty members which are teaching, research, community services, and support the religion. However, job satisfaction may or may not a direct effect from their four pillars of duty. In general, faculty work in the campus has been considered good job with medium pays and it also has been linked with job satisfaction and other issues such as working time, schedule, facilities, rules and regulations, management policy, office culture and physical working conditions of the workplace. However, different demographic background of the faculty members may have different results and different opinions of their job satisfaction. The objectives of this research were to investigate the different demographic information would have different level of job satisfaction or not and to provide some suggestions to improve job satisfaction that may benefits the majority of university faculty members.
A quantitative research study was utilized. This study which was conducted by interviewing with 100 university faculty members who were working at university and who were affected by the management and policy of the university. Statistical description and analysis were performed by using SPSS program. Mean and standard deviation and ANOVA analysis were used for data analysis and generated findings. The result of this investigation revealed that the majority of university faculty members had a very high level of job satisfaction with a mean of 4.51 and SD of 0.8643. It is important to report that differences in demographic background had no different in their preference of job satisfaction. The list of high level of job satisfaction were linked with these factors: management policy, the orders of the organizations, the flow of information, the modern and upgraded of computer equipment and facilities, the high remuneration, and opportunity for trainings. There are five suggestions from this study. First, to provide positive environment. Second, to link reward and recognition to the productivity and job performance. Third, to increase faculty member engagement. Fourth, to provide more training to develop modern and vital skills. Finally, fifth, to evaluate and measure job satisfaction regularly and objectively.
Keyword: Job Satisfaction, Working Conditions, Faculty Members, Measurement
Introduction
Job satisfaction of faculty members is one of the most widely discussed issued of higher education organizations and universities. It related to human resources, organization behavior, and organization management topics. In fact, most of higher education organizations and universities require the knowledge, skills, commitment, and hard working from faculty members. It can be said that one of the most important key successes of higher education organizations and universities is the performance, productivity, and commitment of faculty members. In general, it is belief that higher satisfaction of employees in their job conditions often lead to positive direction of better attitude, higher productivity, low turnover rate, high morality, and high loyalty. Many studies showed that job satisfaction has strong direct and indirect impacts on the performance of employees in different level of their profession. Moreover, job satisfaction of faculty members should have the same logic and reasoning. Job satisfaction should plays a vital role for the success of an individual and of the whole organization.
At the campus of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Bangkok, Thailand, there are clear four