Job Satisfaction and Workplace Happiness as Predictors of Workplace Friendship across Psychological Counselors

Abstract

Workplace friendship is a unique type of relationship across all organizational levels between employees in the same or different departments and is an important factor in professional life. It has been suggested that school counselors need workplace friends, who are an important source of social support, to overcome the stress associated with the corporate environment and job conditions. Furthermore, workplace friendship fulfills several positive functions for both employees and institutions. Thus, the first aim of the current study is to investigate the perceptions of psychological counselors about workplace friendship based on various variables. The second aim is to determine the predictive role of job satisfaction and workplace well-being perceptions of psychological counselors in workplace friendship. The study sample included 339 school counselors, 232 of whom were female (68.4%) and 107 (31.6%) were male, and who were in different provinces in Turkey. The study data were collected with the Workplace Friendship Scale, the Job Satisfaction Scale, the Workplace Well-Being Scale, and a Personal Demographics Form. T-test, ANOVA and multiple regression analysis were employed to analyze the study data. The findings revealed that there were significant correlations between workplace well-being and job satisfaction and workplace friendship. Workplace well-being and job satisfaction explained 27% of the variation in workplace friendship. The study findings contributed to the determination of the factors that affect workplace relations of psychological counselors.