Job satisfaction of professionals within the Ghanaian construction industry

Job satisfaction plays an important role in the overall productivity of any given industry. Despite its importance, little attention has been paid to white collared construction workers. This paper reports on a descriptive study that investigated the job satisfaction of construction based professionals within the Greater Accra Region in Ghana. Data was collected using a sample survey from 35 construction firms, 11 consulting firms, 2 client organizations, 3 management consultants and 5 construction management firms within the Ghanaian construction industry. Response data was subjected to descriptive statistics and subsequently ranking analysis were used to examine the relationship between age and job satisfaction. The results indicated that 'relationship with supervisor' and 'relationship with workmates as the highly ranked factors leading to positive worker satisfaction whereas 'quality of life' and 'personal health' were the least ranked. The factors leading to negative job satisfaction were 'lack of motivation' and 'job dissatisfaction'. On the other hand, 'lack of alertness' and 'lack of confidence' were deemed to have minimum effect. The research limitation of this study is that the survey population consists of construction professions drawn from Greater Accra Region only; as such the findings may not be representative of all construction professions. The originality and value of this study is that little is known about the job satisfaction of the white-collared workers or construction professionals within the context of the Ghanaian construction industry. Given that the success and productivity of the construction industry is linked to the workforce and general 'quality of life', identification of factors affecting job satisfaction can therefore be used by construction organizations in shaping their human resources practices for construction professions. Furthermore, the results of this study can help management in general on how to minimize the negative job effects arising from lack of job satisfaction