With a view to analyzing differences in care workers’ job satisfaction and service quality according to their care experience and self-efficacy as well as the effects of factors that significantly affect care workers’ job satisfaction and service quality on the job satisfaction and service quality, in this study, the following concrete research problems were set.
Research problem 1. How care workers’ job satisfaction varies according to their variables?
Research problem 2. How care workers’ service quality varies according to their variables?
To accomplish the above study purpose and solve the above research problems, this study was conducted with 418 care workers who care for the elderly at care institutions and at homes located in Gyeongnam.
Based on the results and discussion of this study, the following conclusions could be drawn.
First, care workers’ job satisfaction of the care worker is relatively unrelated to their care experience but varies according to their self-efficacy. That is, the higher the self-efficacy, the higher all of overall job satisfaction, internal satisfaction, and external satisfaction. In addition, self-efficacy showed explanatory power of 34.8% for overall job satisfaction, 38.2% for internal satisfaction, and 27.8% for external satisfaction. Among sub factors of self-efficacy, self-confidence has large effects while competence has no effect. Therefore, to improve care workers’ job satisfaction, their self-efficacy should be enhanced. In particular, attention should be paid to inspiring self-confidence and the enhancement of competence should be considered together with other psychological factors.
Second, the service quality of care workers with long care experience is better than that of care workers with short care experience. In addition, the self-efficacy of care workers with care experience for at least 31 months is higher than that of care workers with care experience for less than 31 months. However, a more important fact is that care workers with higher self-efficacy show higher service quality regardless of care experience. In addition, self-efficacy shows explanatory power of 26.2% for entire service quality, 23.4% for the sub factor reliability, 26.8% for responsiveness, 20.0% for empathy, 22.2% for tangibility, and 17.3% for expertise. With regard to the effects of sub factors of self-efficacy on service quality, driving force positively affects entire service quality and all sub factors and self-confidence positively affects sub factors such as reliability, responsiveness, tangibility, and expertise except for entire service quality and empathy, while competence negatively affects entire service quality and sub factor reliability and empathy. Therefore, to enhance care workers’ service quality, attention should be paid to the enhancement of self-efficacy rather than to care experience. In particular, among the sub factors of self-efficacy, driving force and self-confidence that are related to motivational factors should be enhanced. However, since competence rather negatively affects service quality, particular attention should be paid to the enhancement of competence. That is, care workers’ recognition that they are competent makes them unable to easily accept the demands for those that require long-term care or experience difficulties in being prepared to emphasize with their thoughts. Therefore, the enhancement of competence should be combined with the ability to emphasize and education on the importance of users’ trust.