Probable causes of job dissatisfaction among the University of Nairobi library workers.

Abstract

The service departments of the University of Nairobi have been 'stretched' since the double intake of 1987/88. The rapid rise in student population has not been aatched by a similar rise in the number of workers in the service departments. There could be morale problems among these workers if they feel that they are being overworked. This study investigated the probable causes of job dissatisfaction among the workers of the University of Nairobi library. The complaints that were given by the workers, starting with the most dominant, are: lack of career progress poor administrative policies discrimination bad supervision low pay, and inadequate staff welfare programmes. The general level of satisfaction among the library workers was found to be rather low. 79% claimed that they did not find the library a satisfactory place to work in; and 73% said that they were positively dissatisfied by the work conditions in the library. A correlation analysis in section 4.3 of the study supported Herzberg's view that there is an intervening neutral state between job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction. This helped to explain the "duality" found in some of the questionnaires, where a worker with a high score in the job satisfaction index also scored highly in the job dissatisfaction index. This reveals that it is possible for a worker to be simultaneously satisfied and dissatisfied with his work. Analysis of the views that were collected from the workers during informal interviews in the course of the study. concurred with the findings of the more formal information that was captured by the questionnaires. Finally, it must be noted that this study suffered from some limitations. Some of the limitations were in respect of the design of the questionnaire, as discussed in section 3.0 and 5.2 of the study. A second limitation is that the study may be biased because all the respondents were junior workers below the "academic grade" in the library hierarchy. Interpretation and use of the findings of this study should therefore take these limitations into account.