Personality & Work Insights

In a previous article, we discussed some of the reasons that employee satisfaction and productivity may easily have links, despite Dr. Nathan Bowling’s insistence that they do not. In this article, we will continue to look at some of the reasons satisfaction may still be linked to productivity, and why personality cannot simply be the cause of both of them.

Work and Personality It’s also hard to believe – not impossible, but hard to believe – that someone’s personality is unaffected by their relationship with their work. This is especially true of self-esteem – one of Dr. Bowling’s main personality factors in a great employee is high self-esteem.

It’s possible that someone’s self-esteem is badly affected by workplace relationships, and easy to see how things like confidence may improve with a welcoming, satisfaction-oriented workplace. Screen For Personality? Dr.

Bowling’s research would also imply that one can screen for employees that will be both satisfied and productive by giving them a personality test, and by doing so, every employee would remain completely productive, always satisfied, and presumably also extremely loyal to the workplace. The Seattle Mariners once built a baseball team of only players with a history of good “team chemistry.” They lost 100 games. It seems extremely unlikely that finding these factors could lead to perfect productivity and satisfaction in the workplace.

There is no doubt a link between personality, satisfaction, and productivity. There are employees with an abysmal outlook on life that are never satisfied, and others that work extremely hard no matter how they’re treated in the workplace. It would be illogical to assume that employee personality plays no role in both, and companies should always work on hiring those that exhibit positive behaviors.

But is there truly no link between satisfaction and productivity? That seems hard to believe, and at the very least it seems unlikely that both are only personality based. Luckily, employee satisfaction has other benefits that make it something that all companies should still strive for, so in the event that his research is correct, your company can still benefit.

But there are ample reasons to believe that satisfaction and productivity may be linked in some ways. All businesses are different, and there is no guarantee that working on satisfaction can improve productivity, but it may be equally unwise to assume it cannot.