Understanding Job Satisfaction and Occupational Stressors of Distinctive Roles in Zoos and Aquariums

Abstract

For professionals caring for humans or non-human animals, many joys are to be found in working towards what an individual believes to be their calling, especially as they contribute to purposeful, meaningful work consistent with and intrinsic to their own values and beliefs. However, there can be downfalls. Empathic strain, conflict between co-workers, dissatisfaction with upper management, lack of opportunities to make positive changes, limited or no access to level and experience-appropriate professional development, and other stressors are all risks carried by organisations concerned with animal welfare. In the present study, a survey on job satisfaction and workplace stressors was completed by 311 zoo and aquarium professionals working in a range of roles from junior animal care staff to curator. Respondent profiles were created using Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) and four distinct clusters were identified through Hierarchical Clustering on Principal Components (HCPC), highlighting common themes in different levels of experience and in job roles regarding stressors, satisfaction, and feelings about their work and workplaces. Overall, many zoo professionals were concerned with lacking the ability to feel empowered to do their best for animal welfare, and they described a link between the staff welfare and their perceptions of the welfare of the animals they cared for. Through identifying and understanding where organisations can better support their staff it is possible to target and reduce the number of common stressors faced by zoo professionals, leading to increased staff retention, higher job satisfaction, and an improved ability to perform at their best for animal welfare.

Compassion Fatigue in Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) Caregivers: Prevalence, Contributing Factors, and Coping Mechanisms

“…We encourage future research to build on these findings to design and evaluate CF interventions in chimpanzee care and animal-related professions. Continuing to create a "culture of care" that considers the wellbeing of employees alongside animal wellbeing has the potential to help alleviate stressors associated with CF, which, in turn, may improve both employees' professional and personal lives and animal wellbeing [31,35,75,81,82].…”

“…First, as discussed, COVID-19 may have added workplace and personal stress, inflating levels of CF (see also [12]). Second, previous surveys of lab animal personnel included a wide range of professions (caregivers, research staff, study directors, veterinarians and veterinary support staff) [11][12][13], which can influence rates of CF as workplace stressors vary across roles [35]. Third, the species cared for was likely a contributing factor [43].…”

“…Risk factors include exposure to neglect cases, euthanasia-related stress, caring for animals with chronic diseases or atypical histories, and end-of-life care [7,29,32,33]. More general occupational and institutional stressors, such as financial insecurity, inadequate training and resources, understaffing, and poor relationships with other staff members also play a role [3,5,34,35]. Research further suggests that susceptibility to, and ability to cope with, these stressors varies according to individual factors, such as personality.…”

“…While the focus of CF research has begun to extend to animal-professions, to our knowledge no study has both studied and systematically compared CF across the sanctuary and zoo caregiving communities, despite the presence of work-related stressors associated with CF in the broader field of animal-care [36]. We view these as important institutions to study as the regular human-animal interactions required for routine husbandry procedures (e.g., positive reinforcement training), alongside the strong, long-term bonds caregivers form with the animals in their care [37], may put sanctuary and zoo caregivers at risk of developing CF [3,26,35]. Human-animal relationships are generally considered beneficial [38] and may lead to compassion satisfaction (CS)-a sense of fulfilment that arises from caring for others [8,39,40].…”

“…Human-animal relationships are generally considered beneficial [38] and may lead to compassion satisfaction (CS)-a sense of fulfilment that arises from caring for others [8,39,40]. However, they can also lead to stress in and out of the workplace [35,41]. For example, similar to reports from lab animal employees [42] and veterinary workers [24], caregivers at one zoo reported that working directly with the animals was their favorite part of their job while simultaneously describing intense feelings of CF [26].…”