Workplace happiness of wage worker architects and the determinants of job satisfaction at different career stages

Happiness is the ultimate purpose of all. People do everything just to reach to happiness. Work, friendship, interests, hobbies, career or whatever it's called; people just want to reach to happiness after all. In psychology literature, some researchers are suggesting that happiness can't be chased but it only comes after hardwork and a good life. On the other hand, some researchers argue that happiness is a managable consept. There are many happiness related researches in the fields of psychology, sociology, economy and management. Although there are some job satisfaction researches on sectoral basis, there aren't any happiness related ones just focusing on the architecture profession. In this paper, firstly, happiness concept is studied after a general introduction to subject. Past researches show that job satisfaction (which is the subtopic of the workplace happiness) and life satisfaction (which is the subtopic of happiness) are related and affected by each other. Therefore, for a proper understanding of workplace happiness, happiness should be studied first. Although it is hard to make a spesific definition of happiness, past researches show that most of the people are certain about what the happiness ise and how it feels. Answers are generally differs between "joy or having similar positive emotions" and "to be satisfied with one's life" for the question of what the happiness is. But the answers are not limited with these two. There is another answer which is the lack of negative emotions like depression and anxiety. Nowadays, positive psychology concept, which is focusing on positive emotions, psychological health and happiness instead of stress and mental disorders, is dominating the happiness related researches. Positive psychology suggest that people should find happiness in their daily life. Positive psychology differs from classical psychology by shifting the focus on taking precaution instead of treatment. It is based on three principles: subjective experiences/emotions, indvidual attributes and organisations. There are five attributes of happiness. Three of them (positive emotions, lack of negative emotions and life satisfaction) are related with hedonic happiness and subjective well-being views. Other two of them (meaning and engagement) are related with eudaimonic happiness and objective well-being views. There are at least two inputs of happiness according to resarches that measure the happiness. First of them is affective factors which represent positive emotions like joy, satisfaction and pleasure; and the second one is cognitive factors which is composed by assesing the satisfaction of various life inputs. Causes of happiness is classified in three. First of them is individual causes which are present in person by birth and are related to genetic and characteristics. Second one is environmental factors which are independent from person and caused of the environment that surrounds person. Third one is transactional factors which are caused of interactions between person and the environment. Past researches show that happiness is defined at the rate of 50% by genetically and at the rate of 10% by unchangeable environment/life conditions. These two factors are not possible to alter. But the third one, which is the 40% of happiness, is in control of person and can be altered by volitional actions. There is one another factor which is called interactional factors that balances the fit between person and environment. Consequences of happiness can classified in five subtopics which are success/achievement oriented outcomes, desired behaviors oriented outcomes, health oriented outcomes, physical and psychological strength oriented outcomes and social oriented outcomes. At the third part, workplace happiness is studied. Happiness term is not widely used on researches focusing on organisations and workers. This doesn't suggest that researchers are not interested in it. In fact, it is the opposite. For many years, various terms that are directly related to happiness which is the key concept (roof term) of all are studied in detail. These terms are classified in three. The first one is transient layer which is occured by momentary interactive experiences and differs from person to person. Transient layer can be measured subjectively. Second one is personal layer which progresses more consistently in time and and is influenced limitedly by momentary interactions. Personal layer consist of personal effects. And the third one is unit level which describes happiness collectively and counts the organisation as a living single organism. In the literature, there isn't any happiness measure which provides a decent psychometric support. That's why workplace happiness was always measured via its sub-attributes. In the literature of workplace happiness, happiness term is generally used together with (and sometimes alternated with, or instead of) job satisfaction, affect at work, organisational commitment, engagement, flow, instrinct motivation, vigor and so on. Although there are many related concepts to happiness, some of them are came to the fore. These are engagement, job satisfaction and affective organisational commitment. We can have a pretty precise opinion about the level of workplace happiness in personal level by measuring one of three. Job satisfaction measures provides critical, even it's not complete, understanding on workplace happiness Job satisfaction is the most widely used attribute of workplace happiness. In the past, nearly all of the researches that tested happy/productive worker hypotesis defined and operationalised workplace happiness on job satisfaction. It is not wrong to assume that happy worker and satisfied worker are the same. But by doing that we shouldn't ignore the cognitive and affective attributes of job satisfaction. With the help of past researches, this paper is using job satisfaction term as workplace happiness as well and make it operational by not ignoring and considering necessary suggestions. Causes of workplace happiness are classified in three as well as general happiness literature. First of them is individual causes which are present in person by birth and are related to genetic and characteristics. Second one is environmental factors which are independent from person and caused of the environment that surrounds person. Third one is transactional factors which are caused of interactions between person and the environment. Consequences of workplace happiness is divided to three subcategories. The first one is consequences of workplace happiness in transient layer. The second one is consequences of workplace happiness in unit layer. And the third one is consequences of workplace happiness in individual layer. All of the layers have different outputs which are studied in detail in the scope of this research. In the fourth part, time layer is studied by examining career term and the career stages. By doing that, the aim was finding answer to question of "How can career stages of architects be defined?". Various researches showed that career stages have effects on performance and task/job characteristics. Likewise, career stages have a "moderator" effect on performance, job satisfaction, job characteristics and job involvement. Also it forms and strenghtens the bounds between them. In addition to that, expectations and perseptions of workers in different career stages differs because of various factors. In the last part, the situation of architecture professionals in Turky is examined and analysed with a field research. The determinants of job satisfaction at different career stages is studied with adding the time layer to the research. A field research is designed based on the wage worker architects who are at their different career stages working on various architecture based sectors (sectors are categorised in five subcategories by the researcher, these sectors are; design/office, site/execution, education/university, consultancy and others). Main purposes of this research are: - Are there any statistically significant differences between job satisfaction, intrinsic/extrinsic satisfaction and sub-factors of job satisfaction levels of architects who are at different career stages? - Are there any statistically significant differences/correlations between job satisfaction, intrinsic/extrinsic satisfaction and sub-factors of job satisfaction levels of architects in terms of demographical and organisational variables? - Are there any statistically significant differences between self-assessed job satisfaction and occupational satisfaction levels of architects who are at different career stages? - What are the determinants of job satisfaction and occupational unhappines of architects? The results of the field research are not bright when workplace happiness is measured by job satisfaction (which is the generally accepted way of doing it). Level of general job satisfaction of architects is 2,51 out of 5,00 which is far beyond an acceptable satisfaction level. This level barely place between "slightly satisfied" and "satisfied" which are the verbal correspondence at the questionnaire form. This level is fairly low when it is compared to previous researches that are focusing on different sectors and occupations. To sum up, architects are not satisfied enough. When the determinants of job satisfaction are analysed; compensation (1,96/5,00), company policies and practices (2,04/5,00), advancement (2,16/5,00) human relations of supervisors (2,23/5,00) and security (2,29/5,00) are the lowest scored factors respectively. Four factors out of these five are hardly over the 2,00 out of 5,00 level which means "slightly satisfied" verbally. Furthermore, compensation wasn't able to reach to 2,00 and became the only factor that is under it and scored almost "not satisfied" level. When we look at the upper table, co-workers are placed at the top of it as the only factor that is over 3,00/5,00 which means "satisfied" level verbally. Moral values (2,90/5,00), social service (2,83/5,00), achievement (2,76/5,00) and independence (2,70/5,00) factors follow that factor respectively. Lowest scored factors are generally extrinsic satisfaction factors which is more related to organisational factors rather than individual factors. Higher scored factors are generally intrinsic satisfaction factors which is more related to individual and inner evaluated attributes of work. This outcome suggests that the architects are more satisfied with the affective factors that are more related to profession (means architecture here) and less satisfied with the tangible factors that are directly related to companies that they work in. This deduction overlaps with the levels of extrinsic satisfaction and intrinsic satisfaction. Intrinsic satisfaction of architects is measured 2,62/5,00 and it's higher than extrinsic satisfaction which is measured 2,33/5,00. This study reveals that job satisfaction, intrinsic satisfaction and extrinsic satisfaction of architects rises as they climb upper on their career stages. Early career staged architects were measured at 2,41/5,00, while mid-career staged architects were measured at 2,53/5,00 and late career staged architects were measured at 2,94/5,00 level. But one thing should be remembered that even the highest leveled group wasn't able to reach to 3,00/5,00 level which means "satisfied" verbally in the questionnaire form. Sub-factors of job satisfaction show similar results with these. In 19 out of 20 (except co-workers; it shows reverse effects) sub-factors satisfaction level rises as architects climb upper on their career stages. When it's tested whether or not it is significant statistically, it shows that the significant differences occur between early-late career stages and mid-late career stages. It shows same verity in intrinsic satisfaction, extrinsic satisfaction and sub-factors. This findings suggest that career stages have a significant effect on job satisfaction (and workplace happiness as well). When the demographical, economical and organisational variables are examined; males (2,63/5,00) are more satisfied than females (2,41/5,00), married (2,70/5,00) are more satisfied than single (2,40/5,00), MSc Architects (2,65/5,00) are more satisfied than BSc Architects (2,41/5,00), managers (2,70/5,00) are more satisfied than non-managers (2,31/5,00) and site workers (2,47/5,00) are more satisfied than office workers (2,39/5,00). When it's tested whether or not it is significant statistically, it shows that gender, marital status, education level and manager position are significant statistically but working field is not. Also organisational tenure, occupational tenure and income level are correlated to job satisfaction, but organisational size is not. Through these variables, income level forms the strongest correlation (0,369). Age (0,318), occupational tenure (0,310) and organisational tenure (0,221) follows that. All the relations are positive and linear but they aren't strong enough. In the quantiative findings of the study, social service, moral values, independence, co-workers and achievement are the highest scored sub-factors while compensation, company policies and practices, human relations of supervisors, security, advancement, technical ability of supervisors, recognition, and variety are the lowest scored ones. These findings overlaps with qualitative findings of the study. When it's asked to architects to name the causes of occupational unhappiness, the answers are followed like compensation (.44), working conditions (.38), supervisors/bosses (.23), structural problems about work (.23) and recognition problems (.12). In short, one out of two architects are unhappy with his compensation, one out of three architects are unhappy with working conditions and one out of four architects are unhappy with his/her bosses. When the determinants of job satisfaction were asked to architects; compensation (.52) is dominantly distinguish from others. Working conditions (.28), bosses/supervisors (.20), work itself (.20), affective factors (.20), appreciation (.15), recognition (.13) and co-workers (.13) follows respectively. To sum up, architects are not satisfied with their job. Expecially, they are terrible in extrinsic satisfaction which consists of company policies and practices, compensation, supervisors, security and advancement factors. There should be immediate improvement by companies on these factors to enhance the satisfaction levels of architects.