The role of medical service employees’ psychological needs in the medical service sector

Abstract

As life expectancy has increased, interest in well-being has increased across sample populations in many fields of study, including the well-being of employees in service industries. In the medical service sector, understanding service employees’ work experience is important because their experiences influence not only their work performance, but also their lives. In particular, the concept of psychological needs is critical in terms of understanding employee health and predicting positive work outcomes. Therefore, this study investigates how psychological needs at work (i.e., autonomy, a feeling of competence, and relatedness) influence employee job satisfaction and well-being. Survey data are collected from medical service employees in the United States. Partial least squares structural equation modeling is used to examine the proposed model. The results show that satisfying employees’ needs for autonomy and competence (but not relatedness) influences their work engagement, resulting in increased job satisfaction and well-being. Furthermore, medical service employees’ job satisfaction enhances their life satisfaction. Thus, the findings of this study show that medical service companies need to satisfy their employees’ inherent psychological needs to increase both their performance at work and their well-being in life.