Job satisfaction and commitment amongst teaching staff in academic departments at one KwaZulu-Natal higher education institution.

Master of Education in Higher Education. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2016.In order to compete in the market environment organisations, including universities must provide a better product or service than their competitors. In addition to facilities, this requires personnel that perform at their best and are committed to the organisation. Committed staff is satisfied in their jobs, and have pride in their organisation. This study sought to determine what causes staff to be satisfied in their work, proud of the organisation that employs them and consequently committed to the university. Herzberg’s two factor theory, adapted for use in the academic environment, was used to develop a questionnaire, comprising both qualitative and quantitative statements, that was distributed to all teaching staff at the university. Descriptive statistics, Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test, regression analysis, Kruskal Wallis test. ANOVA and Cronbach’s alpha were used to analyse the results. A model was proposed – the model posited that staff that are satisfied and are proud of their organisation will be committed. Committed staff will perform better, will be less likely to be absent from work, and will be less likely to leave the organisation. The results showed that staff at the HEI was generally satisfied but recognition and salary in particular need to be addressed if the university is to achieve its goals. In some instances the freeform comments supported the statistics. Commitment to the discipline was found to be higher than commitment to the HEI. Pride, an area not usually associated with job satisfaction and commitment, was found to be an important factor. Regression analysis shows that organisational pride, age and job satisfaction (in that order) are significant predictors of employee commitment at the HEI under study. Employees who feel a greater sense of pride in the HEI are more committed to the university. In addition, older people show more commitment than younger people and those who expressed greater job satisfaction were more committed to the university. Results did not support the model proposed; statistics revealed there is a positive correlation between job satisfaction, organisational pride and commitment, and it was found that committed staff is likely to remain with the organisation; there was no correlation between commitment and performance, or between commitment and attendance although it was found that staff that attended work were likely to perform better