FACTORS AFFECTING JOB SATISFACTION OF ACADEMIC STAFF: THE CASE OF DILLA UNIVERSITY

The underlying purpose of this article was to investigate the factors affecting job satisfaction of academic staff at Dilla University. This article tries to identify the relationship between working conditions, promotions, coworkers, work itself, supervision, and salary and job satisfaction. A descriptive correlational research design was adopted for the study and a stratified sampling technique was used. As the research approach, both quantitative and qualitative approaches was employed. The study population comprised of 1610 academic staffs in existence at the time of study. A sample size of 125 Dilla university academic staffs was surveyed. Both questionnaires and interviews was used to collect the data. Collected data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20 was used as the tool for analysis. Multiple linear regressions were performed to determine the best predictor of the dependent variable – job satisfaction. The study found out that working condition, promotion opportunities, relationship with co-workers, salary and supervision were the factors determine the job satisfaction of academic staffs and the study further found that there is a positive significant relationship between these factors and job satisfaction. The study recommends that the university should develop strategies to deal with the needs of those academic staffs that experience less job satisfaction by paying special attention to items that faculty member said were dissatisfying. It further recommends that University authorities must also be concerned with the items aligned with the personal growth and satisfaction job factors when seeking to increase this aspect of faculty members’ job satisfaction.