Job Satisfaction and Receiving Prosocial Workplace Behaviors Among Rehabilitation Counselors

Job satisfaction represents how an employee evaluates their job as favorable to unfavorable. Job satisfaction is widely studied because it can affect how an employee thinks, feels, and behaves in relation to their job. There is evidence that a supportive work environment tends to have outcomes that are more positive for the individual employees and the organization in general. While the rehabilitation counseling supervisor is a source of support (e.g., supervisor shows that they value counselor’s contributions; supervisor supports counselor decisions; supervisor trusts counselor to try new things), supervisors are often tasked with many duties in addition to their critical role of supervision and rehabilitation counselors may experience barriers to receiving support from supervisors. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between job satisfaction and support, in the form of prosocial behaviors from individuals in their organization (e.g., one member of an organization helping another complete a task; one member of the organization conveying actions of respect towards another; one member of the organization listening to anxiety and fears at work of another). Among the sample of rehabilitation counselors employed in the state vocational rehabilitation program studied, results indicate that rehabilitation counselors who received support from their supervisor and support from others in the organization reported the highest levels of job satisfaction. For counselors receiving low levels of support from their supervisor, receiving support from others in the organization seemed to make up for lack of support from the supervisor in terms of job satisfaction. In terms of job satisfaction, results indicate it is critical for rehabilitation counselors to receive support from individuals in the workplace in some capacity.