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The Color Of Happiness

Due to the increasing diversity of the United States and many other countries, recruiting and retaining minorities has been a main focus of many organizations.   Job satisfaction is a major factor in an employee’s decision to remain at an organization.   Work stress and perceived racial discrimination, as reported by employees, may be contributing to the lower rates of job satisfaction among minorities in the workplace.   Research shows the effort that organizations put in to increasing and maintaining minority employment may not be effective due to perceived racial discrimination and work stress.
Job satisfaction is defined by Thornton (2001) as “the feeling an employee has about his pay, work, promotion opportunities, co-workers, and supervisors” (p. 143).   Many studies have been conducted to determine what causes unhappy employees, since low job satisfaction may be causing the employees to leave their companies.   Since a diverse environment leads to more creativity in the workplace, it is important to increase the job satisfaction of minorities (Daft & Noe, 2001).
Job Satisfaction
Research has found that in general, minorities have lower job satisfaction than their Caucasian counterparts throughout several different career aspects.   For example, a study conducted in the United Kingdom, Miller & Travers (2005) discovered that minority teachers were less satisfied than their Caucasian co-workers.   These participants cited having to prove themselves, lack of equal opportunities, and lack of recognition as their main reasons for lower satisfaction (Miller & Travers, 2005).   In a study involving minority lawyers, Luney (1984) found that lawyers in more prestigious positions such as federal court judge or law firm partner were significantly more satisfied than other lawyers.   Although reasons were not suggested for these findings, perhaps minority lawyers feel there is a lack of equal opportunity in their profession as well. To maintain employment of minorities,...