Antecedents and consequences of job satisfaction amoungst Group 'A' officers of CRPF : an emperical study

Abstract

Internal Security is the biggest challenge the country is facing today. In the wake of the fast changing security scenario, it has assumed more prominence than ever. With the emerging challenge of Naxalism or Left Wing Extremism, which has threatened to engulf the whole nation, and already existing threats of Insurgency of North Eastern States and Terrorism in J and K, today maintaining Internal Security and Public Order remain the prime concern of the government. After the paradigm shift in the strategy, of the armed forces especially Army, to stay away from engaging in Internal Security duties, the responsibility of CRPF has grown manifolds and the role of Officers has become all the more crucial. The increasing demands of duty and the constraints with which they have to cope with, is pushing them to the limit and testing their patience, skills and sense of pride associated with the job. The study is an effort to understand the Antecedents and Consequences of Job Satisfaction of CRPF Officers, so as to identify the de-motivating factors and to facilitate policy making. Since there is a huge vacuum in the field of R and D in Paramilitary Forces, filling this void by conducting research and bringing forth new insights and ideas will go a long way in framing suitable policies for the Paramilitary Forces. The perception of Justice and Job Burnout are taken as the antecedents, while Organizational Commitment and OCBs are studied as consequences keeping Job Satisfaction as the central theme of the research. The research was conducted by collecting responses from the respondents ie. Group A Officers by sending a Pre-designed Questionnaire and the Data Analysis was done using SPSS 16. A total of 1600 Questionnaires were sent and 341 complete responses were received which were analysed for predicting results. The results of the analysis showed that the most prominent antecedents of Job Satisfaction were Organizational Politics, Distributive Justice, Emotional Exhaustion and Personal Accomplishment. Regarding the consequences of Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment emerged as a dominant factor while OCBs were shown having less significance. Amongst the individual facets of Job Satisfaction, the satisfaction level of CRPF Officers was found to be very low for Promotion, followed by Pay. The survey indicates that satisfaction of CRPF Officers is fairly good with respect to Nature of Work and Supervision. The survey also revealed that with regard to the other three facets of Job Satisfaction viz. Fringe Benefits, Contingent Rewards and Communication, CRPF Officers are reasonably happy. Demographically it was established that the people who have come from rural background and have been educated in Hindi medium are better satisfied in their jobs compared with the city bred, English medium Officers. The former group is also having higher perception of Distributive and Procedural Justice. Similarly the Officers who have come from ranks are better placed in this survey, as compared with Directly Recruited Officers. However, in case of Post-graduates and Graduates, the difference was very negligible in terms of Job satisfaction and perception of Distributive and Procedural Justice. The study ends with policy implications and suggestions to improve the service conditions of CRPF Officers by way of better promotional avenues, reward mechanism and measures to reduce stress levels.