Making sense of the findings

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Summary Results of the Survey Who participated in the 2002 Survey Were there changes from 2000 to 2002 for women? Did Men and women respond similarly?	The Lingering Impact of 9/11 Making sense of the findings Implications: Creating a better workplace Concluding thoughts References and Authors' Note

Making sense of the findings: A broader analysis

Because we asked people many questions that would seem related to each other, we used a procedure called factor analysis to create a few broad scales that would summarize many of their responses in a few themes. This analysis provided additional insight into the characteristics of companies that seem to be related to workers’ satisfaction with their work lives. The factor analysis yielded six factors, or dimensions, that reflect underlying similarities in the ways that respondents answered questions. They function as a sort of mind map of how participants perceived aspects of their work lives. The six factors were:

1. Positive workplace characteristics that encourage individual impact, creativity and autonomy

2. The extent to which job stress has a detrimental impact on life

3. A tendency to value positive workplace characteristics like creativity, autonomy, the ability to learn and grow quickly, etc.

4. Workplace characteristics that cause distress, such as poor infrastructure and communication, constant change, lack of recognition, etc.

5. Self-sufficient coping strategies

6. Job characteristics that keep people in their current jobs

Survey questions that were important in defining these factors were condensed into six subscales, all of which have high internal validity. We looked for significant correlations or relationships among the subscales. Factors 1, 3, 5 and 6 were all positively correlated, reflecting that positive job characteristics are related to job satisfaction. Factors 2 and 4 were positively correlated with each other, and negatively correlated with Factor 1, reflecting that negative job characteristics diminish the positive effects of the work environment.

We examined the relationship between the scales that reflect the six factors and other responses to survey questions:

· A strong relationship emerged between people’s intention to leave their jobs and (a) negative characteristics of the job, and (b) workplace stress that negatively affects other aspects of their lives.

· Respondents who reported that their workplace had positive characteristics (such as encouragement of impact, autonomy, creativity) said they were more likely to remain in their jobs, and thought about leaving less often. People who reported positive workplace characteristics were also more likely to report a greater sense of post-9/11 job security and satisfaction.

· People who felt their jobs had negative characteristics and/or who felt that job stress had a negative impact on work and personal/family life reported more difficulty coping with stress after 9/11.

· We looked at the 32% of men and women who reported that their company had been downsized since 9/11 to discover whether there were any marked differences between them and the rest of the respondents. We found that even among people who have recently experienced downsizing, negative workplace characteristics are associated with frequent thoughts about leaving the job, and positive work characteristics are associated with the intention to stay.

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