ASQ InfVoices - Preliminary Survey for Quality Professionals happiness on their Job in Hong Kong

With response to Mr. Paul Borawski (CEO of ASQ) Influence Voice Topic of April "Are quality professionals happy on the job?", I performed a preliminary survey to Quality Professionals in Hong Kong from 12th to 15th April 2012. An on-line questionnaire was used to survey 500 quality professionals and the response rate was about 6% (28 valid reply). The article aims to discuss quality professionals' responses on like or unlike their job. Moreover, I have tried to use Maslow's FIVE levels, namely Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, and Self-Actualization needs to analyse/ illustrate the results of this preliminary survey from quality professionals in Hong Kong.

(Source: Maslow's hierarchy of needs from Wikipedia)
The questionnaire was shown as follow.

After collected all 28 responses, the description of data were summarized below:
I) Position distribution:
- Senior Manager / Director (35.7%)
- Manager / Consultant (46.4%)
- Engineer / Officer (17.9%)
II) Satisfied (Rating: 3 to 5) vs Not Satisfied (Rating: 1 to 2) is 64.3% vs 35.7%

The overall result is in bell sharp (e.g. normal distribution).

The responses from the levels of Manager and Senior Manager are in bell shape.

The quality professionals' comments on their job satisfactory were summarized based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs below.

Level 1: Physiological
Satisfied Reason:
NIL
Not Satisfied Reason:
Not quiet accept the working environment (1 response)

Level 2: Safety
Satisfied Reason:
Job position, responsibility and stability, as well as salary fiting their expectation. (3 responses)
Not Satisfied Reason:
Salary, welfare and workload (pressure) were found dissatisfied (3 responses)

Level 3: Belongingness and Love
Satisfied Reason:
Belonging to the company and would do somethings in a better way (2 responses)
Not Satisfied Reason:
Reasons included lack of company-wide quality culture, political issues, lack of management commitment, management less attention to quality work, etc. (6 responses)

Level 4: Esteem
Satisfied Reason:
Empowerment, problem solving, as well as, professionalism are belongs to Recognition and Social Status. (5 responses)
Not Satisfied Reason:
NIL

Level 5: Self-Actualization
Satisfied Reason:
Challenging, having influential power for change and freedom are the major reasons for quality job satisfaction. (6 responses)
Not Satisfied Reason:
NIL

It was observed that the most dissatisfactory reasons were at Level 3 or below. On the other hand, the most satisfactory reasons were at Level 4 to 5. The results agreed with Maslow's Theory of Motivation that many professionals achieved the basic needs and they chased further success. It could be concluded that Freedom and Challenge would make people happy.

Reference
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs