Mgr. Gabriela Kravčáková, PhD., Viktória Lovacká

Faculty of Public Administration of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice

Popradská 66, 041 32 Košice, Slovak Republic

SATISFACTION OF UNIVERSITY TEACHERS WITH THEIR WORKING ENVIRONMENTS

Working environments is one of the work place aspects. Work place can be defined by various aspects. We can mention description of work place design, identification of influence of work place aspects on motivation, satisfaction, performance and safety. The article is focused on work place aspects and presents the conclusions of research focused on identification of level of satisfaction with work place aspects of university teachers.

Introduction

Working environment determines the employee attitude and relation to work and organisation, his satisfaction with work and well-being, health condition and last but not least his work performance.

1. Working environment and its components

Višňovský defines work environment as “the system defined by given number of aspects, whose occurrence, intensity and mutual influence determines specific work place conditions” (1996, p. 81). If these aspects are not satisfactory, they impair the well-being of environment, i.e. environment status in which the employees “in defined space feel as well as possible and are able to do the maximum work performance” (Lopušniak, 2005, p. 12). In the course of work process, the sufficient employees’ health protection against adverse influence of excessive physical, mental and sensory burden is requested. If the active burden, it means the burden of active work performance, is intensified by inactive burden as the result of negative influence of work environment aspects, the employee global burden is being increased .The efficiency of work is significantly decreased by this, as the part of employee potential is spent on compensation of such aspects influence. At the same time the work well-being, defined by Rymeš as“summary of values and parameters defining working environment and positively influencing on human activity and positively evaluated by subject” (2003, p. 47), is impaired. Tiredness and overload is increased and concentration is reduced which may conclude in work accidents.

Spatial design of work place shoud complains to body size and natural ways of employee limbs movement and physiologically unacceptable positions should be eliminated. “Unacceptable position is any enforced work position which presses the employee in limited space and the hands movement is also concentrated in small space” (Hüttlová, 1994, p. 44).

Physical work conditions Concerning microclimate conditions, especially air temperature and humidity affects the work performance and safety provided their extreme occurrence at work place .The connection between temperature of work place and frequency and severity of accidents proves that extreme temperature does not increase only frequency of work accidents but their severity as well. Disruption of employee temperature balance has negative influence on employee term regulating processes as the tiredness increase and kinetic ability deterioration is caused by excessive perspiration or barriers of warm evasion because of pore lock. .

In case of lighting, the optimal light regime is requested, it means the status when the ocular analyst (eye) can optimally fulfil its role with maximum efficiency and the lowest tiredness and the visual tiredness at work place is eliminated. Generally, the increasing intensity of lighting keeping its good quality cause that work performance and its regularity increases and the number of errors decreases the more the more difficult attachments are done by the employee.

The main risk of noise is that it acts hidden, attacks human body systematically and its impact is cumulated. The malignancy of noise is influenced by intensity and frequency level, period of impact and frequency range, frequency of interrupting, noise pulse, unexpectation and personal dispositions. Regarding the safety work, the noise can not be considered as the direct reason of work accidents. It has only indirect influence, in particular the connection between noise and tiredness which is the confident accident reason, and the influence of noise on reaction speediness and coordination.

Colour design of work interior has to complain to the type, way and period of work done, shape, size and location of space, the colour of processed material and equipment, lighting, term conditions and also the individuality of employee concerning age and sex. (Hűttlová, 1994).

Social and mental work conditions are specific group of work conditions. From work safety point of view, the type of control, work organisation and interpersonal relationships are especially interesting. Social and mental impulses are caused by need to be in permanent contact with people or on the contrary to work in isolation. Generally, the mental work requires the conditions when the employee is not disturbed by presence of other people, while in case of physical work the shared work place is not the disturbing element seriously impacting the work performance. Extreme work isolation may cause the mental discomfort and negatively influence employee relation to his work attachments and performance. Currently, both the theory and practise confirm that social and mental atmosphere in the company represents the basic aspect influencing the increase (decrease) of employee work performance, competitive level and success of organisation (Kachaňáková, 2003). „For that reason it is necessary to find out and remove the reasons of unwanted tension concluding in decrease of work concern and deterioration of final results. (Antošová, 2003, p. 115).

2. Components of working environment– survey of university teachers opinions

The target of survey was finding out of the importance and satisfaction of selected university teachers with spatial design of work place, physical conditions and social and mental work conditions regarding safety work and health protection and their influence on performance.

The survey method was author questionnaire. The data was evaluated by frequency analysis of absolute and relative values of rate occurrence and Chí-quadrate test - test of good accordance. The survey was performed in 2007.

Survey sample. Selected sample contained 280 university teachers of economy area in Slovak and Czech Republic. 90 respondents filled up the questionnaire (n = 46 Slovakia, n = 44 Czech), which means 32% return rate. The sample structure: 44 women (48,9 %) and 46 men (51,1 %).

Survey conclusions. Although the most of respondents is satisfied with spatial design of work place, we can not overlook the existing reservations or unsatisfactory components of space design. After data evaluation we come to conclusion that most of reservations concern location of desk with computer and location of legs; the space requests and work chair are the most unsatisfactory.

Physical conditions of work satisfy most of respondents at universities. As the most important aspect of work environment the noise is considered as it negatively influences almost on all respondents. Respondents have the reservations or are not satisfied with work conditions. This concerns lighting, temperature or colour design of work place.

Among social and mental work conditions and other work environment components, the higher importance is linked to interpersonal relationships at work place. Most of respondents were satisfied with conditions at work place, but some respondents mentioned the tension at work place, inadequate evaluation of work activities, and unsatisfactory organisation of work or interpersonal relationships

The survey results do not show up the absolutely active attitude and concern of universities management about working environment in sense of creation and assurance of satisfactory and suitable work conditions. Employees can not change many of unsatisfactory components and they are forced to adapt themselves to such working environment

CONCLUSION

Working environment is the basic element of work place. It is composed by components which influence to each other and create particular work conditions in which the individual work attachments are performed. On the base of information obtained, we can say that inadequate material and immaterial work conditions grade physical, psychological and sensory burden of employees in work process and may be the source of health hazard, affect the work well-being and human capacity. The human adaptability is huge, so he can gradually adapt even to extremely adverse work conditions. Such a process is undesirable and induces discontent of employee.

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