Job Satisfaction Importance

It is the desire and aim of every employee to attain some level of satisfaction in their various jobs or work place. Work plays an important role in an individual’s live because these individuals spend more of their time at workplace than any other activity. According to Furnham (2005), there are many reasons why people work. That is, work provides a source of income, a source of activity and stimulation, a source of social contacts, a means of structuring time and a source of self-fulfilment and self-actualisation. Understanding the effects of job stressors on an individual’s health is very important not only from a medical aspect but also from an economic perspective. Thus, job satisfaction plays an important role at the employee level as

Conrad and Parker (1985) described job satisfaction as a match between what individuals perceive they need and what rewards they perceive they receive from their job. Job satisfaction amongst employees is an important aspect of work and having a positive feelings about one’s work contribute to the individual experiencing greater satisfaction with their lives and this can lead to psychologically and physically healthy individuals. The main resources for organisations are employees and without them the organisations would not exist (Worthington & Britton, 2006). Therefore, it is the duty of these organisations to provide some kind of motivation for their employees so that they can put in their maximum best and attain job satisfaction to help increase productivity. Job satisfaction has become a popular research area for researchers in organisation and management studies (Luthans, 2005). The satisfaction employees attain from their job affects commitment, motivation, productivity performance, absenteeism and turnover (Fenwick, 2006). That is to say if job satisfaction is achieved it leads to positive mental health of the employee. Further research has shown that

The paucity of literature on the mental health of police officials in general is very worrying.

Although many studies have explained the topic of job satisfaction and mental health, there has been less concern about employees in the police service in terms of their job satisfaction and mental health especially in Ghana. Also job satisfaction among police personnel should be of great concern to all because without these employees security and law enforcement will come to a halt. More so, the mental health of police officials is of great concern because of the nature of their work. Thus, some of their work entails handling of dead bodies, assault from the public among others and all these endanger their lives if care is not taken which affect them physically and psychologically at the long