The best reward is seeing something come to life: Experts at ministries lived experience of job satisfaction

Abstract

Work within ministries impacts the whole society and their experts serve important duties towards ministers and ministerial projects. New research indicates job dissatisfaction among ministerial staff in Iceland and need for improvements regarding management, communication, work environment and work demands. For the past years changes and improvements have been made within the public sector but limited knowledge is available on the work experience of experts. The goal of this study was to obtain insight into how it is for experts to work in ministries in Iceland to enhance understanding of determinants of their job satisfaction. Indepth interviews were conducted with experts with extensive experience in ministries and they were analyzed and interpreted according to a phenomenological methodology. Four themes emerged from the interviews: 1) The best reward is to see something come to life, 2) Rather demanding to have a controlling manager, 3) There are demands, huge demands on us, always higher and higher demands and 4) Not often able to flourish. Main findings show that despite working under high demands and time pressure, the experts have passion for their work and motivation to contribute to society, but they often experience lack of trust and structure, their knowledge is inadequately used and therefore they often do not flourish at work. This research provides new insight into the work of experts in ministries. Findings indicate that their job satisfaction could be enhanced with public service motivation as well as managerial servant leadership with emphasis on intrinsic motivation and accountability.