Employee Satisfaction in the Health Care Sector A Comparative Study of Private and Public Health Care Organisations in the UAE

• Published in: Journal of health management Vol. 12; no. 1; pp. 19 - 38
• Main Authors: Barhem, Belal, Younies, Hassan, Younis, Mustafa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Delhi, India SAGE Publications 01.01.2010
• ISSN: 0972-0634; 0973-0729
• DOI: 10.1177/097206340901200103

Health care workers play a vital role in patients’ well-being. Their satisfaction is an important issue for all health care managers. Health care providers can be categorised into two groups on the basis of their financial goals and sources of funding. The two categories are: not-for-profit (NFP) publicly funded organisations; and for-profit (FP) privately funded organisations. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), FP and NFP health care organisations operate under similar government regulations and workforce diversity. However, the objectives and source of funds for FP and NFP health care organisations always affect the management style and decisions. These differences—in addition to differences related to job satisfaction and personal development—such as medical equipment, materials, facilities and the availability of support staff, have an impact on the satisfaction of health care workers. In our study, we investigate the major factors affecting health care workers’ satisfaction level within private and public health organisations in the UAE. Differences in satisfaction level based on gender, ethnicity, work type and organisation size are studied. The findings of the study show a medium level of satisfaction in the private and public sectors, with differences in all satisfaction dimensions between both sectors except for nature of job. Organisation size, too, seems to affect the satisfaction level.