Development and testing of an organizational job satisfaction tool: increasing precision for strategic improvements.

OBJECTIVE

This article describes the development and testing of a new instrument that measures organizational job satisfaction (OJS).

BACKGROUND

Nurse satisfaction includes 2 different types of satisfaction: OJS and professional work satisfaction. To obtain valid results, each type must be measured correctly.

METHODS

A metasynthesis of OJS was conducted from 3 sources: nurse satisfaction instruments, attributes present in recruitment advertisements, and nursing comments from a national survey. A cross-walk of these sources provided 17 consistent OJS satisfiers. A survey of 10,000 nurses identified the importance of these satisfiers.

RESULTS

Cronbach α for the scale was .85. The satisfiers were grouped into 3 categories: universally important, moderately important, and unimportant.

CONCLUSIONS

A synthesis from 3 sources, including identification of important satisfiers, provides validity for the OJS scale. The scale is a reliable and valid tool used to assess and evaluate strategies to improve the nurses' work environment.