Employee job satisfaction in a steel manufacturing company in the Vaal triangle of South Africa

Abstract

Employee job satisfaction and retention are challenges that the South African steel manufacturing industry faces. This study aims to assess the levels of employee job satisfaction in Arcelor Mittal South Africa and to determine the relationship between job satisfaction and employee retention. Furthermore, this study aims to explore factors that affect employee retention and job satisfaction within the South African steel manufacturing industry. The population of the study consisted of employees from different management levels at Arcelor Mittal South Africa, Cold Rolling department. The sample size consisted of 124 employees determined by the convenience sampling method. Data was gathered by the use of use of questionnaires as measuring instruments. Quantitative data analysis was done by the use of SPPS software version 22. This study consisted of two parts, namely a literature review and an empirical study. The literature review comprised of an overview of the literature on previous findings about job satisfaction and employee retention. The empirical study was done by conducting a survey among 124 employees working at Arcelor Mittal South Africa, Cold Rolling department at different organisational levels. The measuring instrument used was the standardised Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) job satisfaction questionnaire and employee retention questionnaire developed by Marguerite Theron. The results revealed that job satisfaction levels differ between employees with different educational levels. Employees with postgraduate qualifications appeared to have higher levels of job satisfaction than the employees with only bachelor's degrees as highest qualification and those without tertiary education. This study further revealed the relationship between employee job satisfaction and their intention to leave the organisation. It was found that the lower the level of employee job satisfaction, the higher their intention to leave the company and vice versa. The participants of this study listed external factors namely opportunities for promotion, financial compensation, career development, and company policies as the top reasons for potentially leaving the organisation. The findings of this study will provide managers and supervisors with insight into the level of employees' job satisfaction within the industry and help the industry identify factors that affect job satisfaction. In turn, this will guide managers and supervisors in finding strategies that will improve job satisfaction in the workplace and employee retention. The small sample size and the fact that the study was limited to only one department of the organisation were limitations of the study. Further research should be conducted on a larger sample that includes different departments within the organisation.