How To Assess how Satisfied You are with Your Job

It is human nature to never be satisfied. What we are today as human beings is a result of millions of years of genetic evolution. We always strive to outdo each other and ourselves. There is always room for improvement. We can always do better than before. Just look at the technological advancements in the past couple of years!

However, if we are to embark on a new career or business opportunity, we have to know the advantages and disadvantages of moving to a new company or simply staying with our current employer. With this, you have to determine how satisfied you are with your current job. While there are no hard metrics to measure your job satisfaction, there are some subjective indicators.

Assess your monetary satisfaction. Your monetary satisfaction will most likely be the first consideration you will have in rethinking your career. If a new job will mean making ten times more than your current one, then there is obvious merit in considering moving to a new company.

Assess your monetary satisfaction by looking at your salary, your bonuses, your allowances, overtime and holiday pay, and other monetary benefits.

• Is your current basic salary enough to cover your monthly expenses?
• Next are the bonuses. Are you receiving performance bonuses for a job well done?
• How about company profit sharing or bonuses for the holidays? How frequently are these given? Are they guaranteed every year? 
• Next are the allowances. Are you being given food allowance or transportation allowance? What about pocket money for official travel?
• Finally, are you being given extra pay for overtime work or if they require you to report during a holiday?

If your answers are mostly positive, and if you are satisfied with the above situation, then you are satisfied in terms of money.

Assess your emotional satisfaction. You don’t have to be connected emotionally with your colleagues in order to say that you are satisfied emotionally with your job. You just need to have a good working relationship with these people.

One of them is your boss. If you have a boss who pushes you to excel, but does not yell and harass you, then you are fortunate. If you have colleagues who are good team players, and who are dependable, then you are fortunate. Another is your sense of belonging. Can you identify well with the industry you are in? Can you identify well with the company you work for?

Do you love what you do? A job does not feel like work when you love what you are doing. If your job involves activities that you do as a hobby, or if you get a certain sense of satisfaction for accomplishing something work-related, then that certainly is satisfying.

If you are satisfied with your job, with its monetary and non-monetary perks, then you will be more productive. You don’t necessarily get stressed out after a day at work. If this is the case, then consider yourself fortunate, because not everyone can say he loves his job.