AN ASSESSMENT OF WORKERS’ SATISFACTION IN ESTATE SURVEYING AND VALUATION FIRMS IN LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA

This study examined the levels of satisfaction of employees with the major focus on the staff of estate surveying firms (ESFs) practicing in Lagos State, Nigeria. This was with a view to identify the factors influencing their levels of job satisfaction and analyze the relationship among the influencing factors. Structured questionnaire were administered to 367 ESFs operating in Lagos State out of which 274 representing 74.66% questionnaire were properly filled, returned and analyzed. The study deployed descriptive statistics such as simple frequency distribution, mean weighted score (MWS), cross tabulation, correlation and one-sample test (t-test). The findings of the study showed that few estate surveyors (17.52%) expressed satisfaction in the job, 39.42% of the employees were completely dissatisfied while 43.07% of them were unsure about their job satisfaction level. The result of cross tabulation showed that, male estate surveyors expressed higher level of dissatisfaction (53.73%) compared to their female counterparts (33.65%) in ESFs. From the MWS result, the respondents rated communication (COM: 4.41), fairness and sufficiency of salary (SAL: 4.23), the quality of relationship with supervisor (RLS: 4.23), fairness of organizational policies (ORG: 4.17), reward for good job performance (RWD: 3.85) and quality of relationship with co-workers (RCW: 3.77) as the dominant influencing factors of job satisfaction. The study also discovered strong positive correlation coefficient between COM and COW (.824), SAL and RWD (.775), RLS and COM (.754). At 5% confidence level, the result of the t-test showed positive contributions of all the influencing factors to employees job satisfaction in estate firms (p<0.05). The study concluded that providing enabling work environment in ESFs should be encouraged for optimal unitization of human and non-human resources. Thus, issues relating to staff welfare should be treated with optimum priority in organizations that desires to achieve efficiency in their operations. Keywords: