Level of Organizational Empathy and Job Satisfaction among Teachers amidst Pandemic

Abstract

Filipino teachers have changed their lifestyle because of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19). Specifically, high work-related stressors, and lack of technology caused their emotional burn-out, creating some concern among teachers about their professional future. Consequently, school leaders’ empathic capacities were significant in changing schools’ emotionally charged situations. It was found in this study, through a quantitative research design, that among 117 senior high school teachers who were randomly selected in General Trias City, Cavite, majority were highly empathic and very satisfied with their job even in the middle of pandemic. However, emotion norms; work environment, workload, and pay and benefits, among dimensions of organizational empathy, and job satisfaction, have a lower level of percentage among other dimensions, respectively. Additionally, organizational empathy is directly associated with job satisfaction which allows employees to become more motivated, proactive, and productive in the workplace. In-Service Training, alternative work arrangements, regular monitoring of teacher’s health, and health and wellness programs were found to be best practices amidst pandemic. In conclusion, the higher the organizational empathy, the more satisfied the senior high school teachers become. Constructively, situations such as the pandemic served as an opportunity to enhance, improve, and acquire additional skills to improve job satisfaction, without risking the mental and psychological aspects of the senior high school teachers. The school administrators, principals, and supervisors may continue the way they handle their organization such as sustaining their department’s strong identification, and top management’s leadership strategies, which enables them to make the organization highly empathic, highly job satisfied, respectively.