Boosting job satisfaction: How to improve attitudes of employees

Luxembourg study exposes that high employee exposure to Human Resources Management (HRM) is not sufficient; participation is the key

November 17 - As workplaces struggle to attract and retain talent, Human Resources Management (HRM) is used as a strategic mechanism to strengthen employee job satisfaction and commitment, and therefore firm performance.

But what is HRM?

HRM can be a valuable tool for firms to develop employees. It translates, for example, into schemes to encourage employee involvement in decision making, team working, trainings, flexible work-time and incentives. The hypothesis is that the greater number of HRM practices set up by firms, the greater the positive results obtained by firms.

But is that true?

This paper focused on links between HRM strategy and job satisfaction and organisational commitment. More precisely, it looked to identify the extent to which the availability of HRM practices at the firm level, independent of the level of employee participation, can affect employee attitudes. The study found that Firms employing HRM strategies cannot content themselves by merely creating and exposing employees to HRM. The study finds high exposure to HRM is not sufficient to improve employee attitudes when the level of employee participation in HRM is taken into account.

"Managers need to encourage a high involvement of the staff in the HRM system they have adopted." — Dr LUDIVINE MARTIN (LISER)

Employees need especially to participate in training, participate in the decisionmaking process and work in teams in order to exhibit a positive response to the HRM system in place regardless the level of HRM exposure they face.

First-of-its-kind study

Prior to this study, existing evidence on HRM strategy was limited to separate analyses of the relationship between exposure to HRM or participation in HRM and employee attitudes which affect overall firm performance. This paper is the first to integrate the two perspectives in a single analysis.

The study used recent employer-employee data collected in Luxembourg from 1,238 private sectors workplaces of at least 15 employees and more than 8,370 resident and cross-border employees.

The unique study is part of the TWAIN project supported by the National Research Fund, Luxembourg. It was conducted by Dr Laetitia Hauret and Dr Ludivine Martin of the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), Dr Nessrine Omrani of the Paris School of Business and the Prof. Donald Williams of Kent State University.