Career anchors and its relationship with nurses' job satisfaction

Career anchor identifies job-related values ​​and capabilities. Eight career anchors are: Functional- Technical, General Managerial, Autonomy & Independence, Security & Stability, Creativity & innovation, Serve & Dedication, Pure Challenge, and Lifestyle anchor. Each person has a special career anchor. Knowing the career anchors of employees is important both for the individuals themselves and for the managers of the organization. Adapting the career anchor to the nurse's work leads to improved work outcomes.

Methods & Materials:

This is a correlational study. Data collection tools included background characteristics, job satisfaction and job anchors questionnaire which consisted of eight anchors of Functional- Technical, General Managerial, Autonomy & Independence, Security & Stability, Creativity & innovation, Serve & Dedication, Pure Challenge, and Lifestyle. After obtaining the ethical approve, the link of electronic questionnaires was provided to all nurses working in the hospitals of East Azerbaijan University of Medical Sciences (about 4000 nurses). Inclusion criteria were having at least a bachelor's degree and employment as a clinical nurse and exclusion criteria were not completing more than 10% of the items by the respondents. Data were analyzed in SPSS 16 by descriptive, analytical and regression tests.

Findings:

 Data from 470 nurses were analyzed. The mean and standard deviation of the participants' age and work experience were 35.97±7.29 and 12.16±6.90, respectively. According to the results, the most dominant career anchors were the anchors of lifestyle, serve & dedication, and security and stability, respectively. The lowest scores were related to the Creativity & innovation anchor and the General Managerial anchor. The job satisfaction score was also in the middle range (12.99±14.46 from the range of 15 to 75). Job satisfaction scores were also moderate. After adjusting the confounders, the relationship between job satisfaction score and anchors of lifestyle, general management, functional- technical and autonomy & independence was significant.

 According to the findings, adjusting work shifts and stabilizing employment positions are recommended to increase job satisfaction and align the career anchor with the nursing job.