JOB SATISFACTION AMONG VETERINARIANS WORKING IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR IN KHARTOUM STATE, SUDAN

This study aimed to evaluate job satisfaction among veterinarians working in the private sector in Khartoum State, Sudan. A structured questionnaire tool with a 5 Likert scale was used. It is distributed to a population sample of 157 veterinarians. Responses to the demographic section showed almost equal numbers of males and females among the respondent vets. Most of those respondents were from north (59%). The average monthly salary of all the respondent vets in the sample population was less than 344$ with the majority (80.9%) under 40 years of age. The analysis revealed a significant association between some of the dependent factors in the study while there is a statistical difference in gender responses to some of the factors of Job facilities and Career development. The general direction of samples in Career development was found to be towards “Agree” while the general direction of the samples in both sections of Job facilities and Job satisfaction was found to be towards “Neutral”. Veterinarians working in the private sector in Khartoum State are partially satisfied with their jobs. Awareness of job satisfaction and interaction between the veterinary community and veterinary institutions are needed to meet the sector needs in the final product (veterinarians) and to raise the confidence of the veterinarian in the job market.


INTRODUCTION
Job satisfaction has begun to receive attention in Sudan in the last few years as job is crucial in the individuals' life, in both: the way they live and their interaction in the community as a whole.Concomitantly, having contented staff is essential for every business.The importance of the private sector in veterinary services is increasing as it has expanded in Sudan' in the last 2 decades.They offer a sizable population of people quality services and employment possibilities.There is a general understanding that the overall productivity and success of any organization depends on the effective performance of employees, and that better performance depends on employees' job satisfaction.Poor job satisfaction leads to a higher rate of turnover and exiting the profession entirely.The cost of high turnover is overwhelming for businesses (Hearn, 2019).individuals who get or use items-goods or services-and have the option to select between various goods and suppliers are considered to be customers (Kavita and Mallikarjun, 2016).The reaction of the customer to the assessment of the apparent difference between prior expectations and the actual performance of the good or service as viewed after use is known as the customer's satisfaction, it is defined as a postconsumption evaluation of a particular good or service (Berry and Parasuraman, 1992).Attainable increases in satisfaction could dramatically improve loyalty (Iacobucci et al., 1994;Gures et al., 2013).Service quality was found to impact positively on satisfaction and loyalty.Parasuraman et al. (1991) have argued that the key to providing the best service is to understand and respond to customer expectations.Compared to the general population, veterinarians have been reported to feel greater negative emotions at work, this reflects the need for looking into and fostering good emotions in their line of work (Fredrickson (2001).Gender and age were found to show variation within the veterinary community, with female and younger veterinarians showing lower levels of wellbeing and more instances of serious psychological distress (Volk et al. 2020;Kogan et al., 2021).In Sudan, Studies on job satisfaction are recent and scarce, and to our knowledge, there is no previous study concerning job satisfaction among veterinarians.They do not only need extrinsic satisfaction, but they need also intrinsic or psychological satisfaction from their jobs.in underdeveloped African countries such as Sudan, the veterinary profession is an essential one that participates in the development and prosperity of the country and in providing a higher quality food of animal origin to local communities exporting countries.This study aimed at evaluating job satisfaction among veterinarians working in the private sector in Khartoum State, Sudan.

METHODOLOGY
A structured questionnaire tool with a 5 Likert scale was used.It is distributed to a population sample of 157 veterinarians working in the private sector in Khartoum State, Sudan during the period from December 2022 to March 2023.The questionnaire has four sections: demographic information of the respondent, Job facilities offered to the respondent, Career development of the respondent, and Job satisfaction of the respondent.Veterinarians working as site or house managers in poultry farms were excluded.
After collecting the forms and uploading data, statistical data analysis was made using SPSS version 16.Scale 5 in the five Likert scale denotes the highest satisfaction and scale 1 denotes the least satisfaction ANOVA tests were used for the descriptive and quantitative analysis of the data.Cronbach's alpha was calculated to determine the stability of the scale and the validity of the study.The validity coefficient is calculated as the square root of the reliability coefficient.
To determine of sample direction towards one of the Likert scale degrees, for the questionnaire on job satisfaction of veterinarians working in the private sector in Khartoum State, Sudan, responses were classified into five categories the range of which are shown in Table 1.

RESULTS
Cronbach's alpha coefficient was found to be 0.857 which is considered an excellent determination of the reliability of the questionnaire.Validity was found to be 0.925.

Demographic information of the respondents
Responses to the demographic section (table 2) revealed that females constitute 52.2% of the respondents whereas males were 47.8%.59% of the respondents were from the north, 25% were from the west and 16% were from the east.The majority of the respondents (80.9%) were under 40 years of age, of those veterinarians 47.8% were at the age of 20-30 years, and 33.1% were at the age of 31-40 years.9.6% were at the age of 41-50 years, and the same percentage of respondents were above 50 years.69.4% of the sample size was BVSc.holders, 29.3% were M.Sc.holders and only 1.3% were Ph.D. holders.Veterinary pharmacists, clinicians, vets working at poultry companies, veterinarians working at feed companies, and laboratory veterinarians constituted 51.6%, 19.7%, 12.1%, 9.6%, and 7% of the respondents respectively.Those veterinarians had different experience ranging from 5 years to 20 years and above.The daily working hours of the respondent veterinarians were different, where 52.2% of the respondents were working for 7-9 hours and only 1.3% were exceeding 14 working hours.The average monthly salary of the respondent vets was found to be 100-200 SDG (173 -344$) for 31.2, more than 200 SDG (> 344$) for 26.8%, 50-99 SDG (87 -172$) for 18.5%, 30-39 SDG (52-65$) for 12.1% and 11.5% of the respondents has a salary range of [40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49].
Job facilities offered to the respondent.The analysis revealed a significant association between "Years of experience" and "Number of training" and between the "Years of experience" and "Training place" (outside corporation) whereas there was no association between "Number of training" and "Years of experience" (Table 3).
There was a statistical difference in means between gender responses to "I don't find difficulties in seeing performance reports" and "I don't find transportation difficulties (Table 4), "Education level" and "There is a teamwork spirit among organization staff" (Table 5), "Occupation" and "My direct manager assists me in my work", "Occupation" and "My job is enjoyable" (Table 6), "years of experience" and the responses "I don't face transportation difficulties ", "My efforts are appreciated" and "There is clear job description" (Table 7) and the age of the respondent and the mean of "Diagnostic tools are readily available" (Table . 8).
The "Training provided" showed significant differences with "I always feel improvements in my skills" "I don't suffer from dealing with illiterate people", "I have a suitable work environment", "I have a clear job description" and "I feel I am paid a fair amount for my work" with ANOVA F value =5.484, 3.798, 3.381, 3.285 and 3.538 and P value = 0.000, 0.006, 0.011, 0.013 and 0.009 respectively, (Table 9).
There was a significant difference in the salary average of the respondents and "I don't find difficulties when dealing with colleagues", "I always feel improvement in my skills", "I don't suffer from dealing with illiterate people", "I don't face transportation difficulties", "Buildings are suitable for job performance" and "I don't find difficulties in dealing with owners" with ANOVA F value = 4. 633, 4.451, 3.148, 3.451, 4.153 and 3.382 and P value =0.001, 0.004, 0.016, 0.01, 0.003 and 0.011 respectively (Table 10).
Career development 35% of the respondents had been facing difficulties in dealing with large ruminants, 31.2% with pets, 22.9% with equine, and 10.2% with small ruminants.only 0.6% were not facing difficulties with any of the animal species.11.There was a significant difference between means of the six responses of career development when conducting one sample t-test and the general direction was found to be towards "Agree".

Job facilities and job satisfaction
Table 12 and Table 13 show the descriptive analysis of the job facilities section and job satisfaction section and the general direction of the sample towards the five Likert scale categories respectively.The general direction of the sample in both sections was found to be "Neutral".Although they constitute more than 50% of the sample population in this study, females were less satisfied than males.This can be attributed to the difficulties facing females such as difficulties in transportation.Moreover, females are known for their additional responsibilities in the house and the community as a whole which constitute another psychological burden affecting their satisfaction.Facing transportation difficulties showed a significant difference with females more likely to be affected.Sankar et al (2013) reported "Difficult transportation" as one of the stress factors facing veterinarians in Kerala State of India.
For both females and males, there is a general satisfaction in career development.This was unexpected in the current economic and sociopolitical situation in the country.
In this study, we found that the age of 30-40 years was more satisfied specifically for "Diagnostic tools are readily available" In previous studies (Volk et al., 2020) older veterinarians were more satisfied than younger ones.
Satisfaction is expected more in PhD holders, the study revealed that the most satisfied vets are the M.Sc.holders.A larger population size may be needed to reflect a higher degree of confidence in this result as the number of Ph.D. holders is very small in this study and may not reflect the actual situation this is supported by the direction of satisfaction towards the M.Sc.holders compared with a population of B.V. Sc. of about 70%.
Amazingly, about 50% of the veterinarians working in the private sector are in the age range of 20-30 years.This may be due to the downgrading of the jobs in the governmental sector and the poor payment that changes the direction of the youth mind from seeking governmental jobs to private sector jobs.It is also suggested that the fieldwork suits the younger ages more.
Veterinary pharmacists were found to constitute 50% of the population.This high percentage may be due to the type of clients, where most of the community in the country are pastoralists or herders who used to manage their herd health with their own experience and almost seek veterinary services for drugs only.
Although there is only 41% of the areas rich in livestock, the previous dealing with animals scored a higher percentage.This could be attributed to the characteristics of the Sudan human which is culturally and historically engaged with different species of animals.
Difficulties in dealing with animals were considered stress factors in previous studies.
In 2013, Sankar et al surveyed to study job satisfaction and stress levels among vets of Kerala State of India.One of the top-ranking stress factors was found to be "Large animal practice, especially dystocia".In this study, this may partially be related to the high percentage of females among the sample population in the absence of well-trained veterinary assistants.It is important to critically assess current practices that appear to increase stress (Kogan et al., 2021).
The results of this study showed that veterinarians who are shareholders in the production cycle are not shareholders in the product and benefit as the reward suggests.The minimum salary range which is 52-69 USD is the salary of 12% of the population of veterinarians, this salary is equal to about 10 kg of mutton meat, less than 20 kg of broiler meat, or 600 eggs.While 75% of the veterinarians are paid less than 350 USD, in other words about 11.67 USD /day!The bad reward is also reflected in the non-significant correlation between the number of training and years of experience.Kochar (2015) found that there is a strong association between (Monetary Consideration) (Facilitation for Current Performance and Future Growth) with job satisfaction.
Difficulties-whether in transportation or in dealing with others to see their performance reports-are more obvious for female veterinarians.This may be due to the difference in dealing with males and females in the whole community rendering the females more vulnerable to bad conditions.
The age of 31-40 years is the most satisfied with the availability of diagnostic tools.This may be attributed to the increase of knowledge and communication facilities in the Sudan in the last two decades and at the same time the financial issues for the younger age may constitute the obstacle for the availability of tools taking into consideration the distribution of the population within the different occupation categories.
Vets working in laboratories are the most to enjoy their job followed by clinicians, poultry companies, and feed companies respectively.Surprisingly the least to be enjoyable is the pharmacies to which the majority was directed!
Career development was found to be significantly associated with veterinarians' satisfaction in the private sector with direction towards "Agree".The overall job facilities satisfaction level was "Neutral" indicating that veterinary doctors are partially satisfied in this section.In the last section, concerning Job satisfaction, the psychological aspects such as appreciation, communication, and cooperation indicate a strong association with job satisfaction.As the general direction of the responses is "Neutral", it is concluded that veterinarians working in the private sector in Khartoum State are partially satisfied with their jobs, this result is in line with that concluded by Goyal et al. (2018) when studied job satisfaction among veterinary surgeons in India.Considering the importance of this subject, and the specific agricultural nature of Sudan, research should be carried out with a larger sample size and covering the veterinarians in the whole country.Understanding the various dimensions that affect loyalty will help managers provide better services and build customer loyalty (Oyeniyi and Abiodun, 2011).

Table 1 :
Sample direction towards one of the Likert scale degrees for the questionnaire on job satisfaction of veterinarians working in the private sector in Khartoum State, Sudan.

Table 2 :
Demographic Information of veterinarians working in the private sector in Khartoum State, Sudan.

Table 3 :
Correlation between "Number of times of receiving training", "Years of experience" and "Training place" of the respondents to the questionnaire on job satisfaction of veterinarians working in the private sector in Khartoum State, Sudan.

Table 4 :
Difference in means between the veterinarian gender response to "I don't find difficulties in seeing performance reports" and "I don't face difficulties in transportation" in Khartoum State, Sudan.

Table 5 :
Difference in means between the level of education of the respondent veterinarian and response to "I have suitable work environment" and "There is a teamwork spirit among organization staff" in Khartoum State, Sudan.

Table 6 :
Difference in means between the occupation of the respondent veterinarian and response to "My direct manager assists me in my work" and "My job is enjoyable" in Khartoum State, Sudan.

Table 7 :
Difference in means between the years of experience of veterinarians working in the private sector in Khartoum State, Sudan, and their other responses.

Table 8 .
The difference in means between the age of the respondent veterinarian and response to "Diagnostic tools are readily available" in Khartoum State, Sudan.

Table 9 :
Difference in means of the training provided for veterinarians working in the private sector in Khartoum State, Sudan, and their other responses.

Table 11 .
Descriptive analysis of responses of career development responses of veterinarians working in the private sector in Khartoum State, Sudan, and the general direction of the samples towards the Likert 5 categories

Table 10 :
Difference in means of the average salary provided for veterinarians working in the private sector in Khartoum State, Sudan, and their other responses.
1.I do not find difficulties in seeing performance reports 2. I do not find difficulties when dealing with colleagues 3. I always feel improvement in my skills 4. I do not suffer from dealing with illiterate people 5.There is training and development 6.I do not face difficulties when prescribing costly medicines to poor owners

Table 12 :
Descriptive analysis of Job Facilities responses of veterinarians working in the private sector in Khartoum State, Sudan, and the general direction of the samples towards the Likert 5 categories.
1.I do not face difficulties in transportation 2. The cleaning service is good 3. Buildings are suitable for job performance 4. Temperature and cooling systems are reasonable 5.There are good safety place measurements 6. Diagnostic tools are readily available 7. I always get veterinary assistance.There are accurately written facilities to promote my work

Table 13 .
Descriptive analysis of Job satisfaction responses of veterinarians working in the private sector in Khartoum State, Sudan, and the general direction of the samples towards the Likert 5 categories My efforts are appreciated 2. I have a suitable work environment 3.There is good communication between manager and staff 4.There is good cooperation between me and my manager 5.I do not face problems when dealing with owners 6.My direct manager assists me in my work 7.There is a clear-cut job description 8. My job is enjoyable 9.I feel I am paid a fair amount for my work 10.There is a good balance between my work and my personal life 11.There is a teamwork spirit among organization staff