GMAT Essays (AWA)

The success of a company correlates directly with the average job satisfactino of its employees.

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experiences, obyervations, or reading.

The question whether there is a direct correlation between the success of a company and the average job satisfaction of its employees is a controversial one. It is widely accepted that high job satisfaction improves the employees´ perfprmance and productivity and may contribute to the company´s success. However, I think there are even more factors that should be considered as roots of success and a high average job satisfaction does not necessarily guarantee success in business.

First of all, it is alwas necessary to give an accurate definition of the success of a company. Some people might talk of economic figures whereas others tend to focus on social factors. For the following I refer to the economic success of a company.

The succes of a company does not only depend on one factor. In addition to the average job satisfaction there are other important parameters such as the purchasing conditions for raw materials, the technological progress, the development of the relevant market and, of course, the economic situation in general. Hella KGaA Huck & Co. for example, a German automotive supplier, generated a very high profit of 100 million dollars though most of Hella´s employees claim to have a very low job satisfaction according to a recent in-house study. Their competitors such as Bosch have a higher average job satisfaction but generated less profits.

Moreover, the average job satisfaction is not significant enough. A company is able to obtail a high average job satisfaction even when there is half of the employees dissatisfied and the other half satisfied at a very high level. But if the leading employees are those having a low job satisfaction and this negatively contirbutes to their performance, they might make wrong decisions and do not work hard enough to lead the company to success.

Finally, i can say that the job satisfaction in general might lead to an improved perforamance of some employees but this does not necessarily correlate with the success of a company. There are other factors at least as important as the job satisfaction when determining the economic success.





I have written this essay in one of my practice tests and left in uncorrected to pretend a real GMAT situation.


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