A Closer Look at Employee Satisfaction

Businesses function best when employees are both satisfied and engaged, so it’s important for managers to consistently measure the level of satisfaction and engagement among their employees in order to best reach business goals.

While the two terms are often used interchangeably, there is a difference in their definitions:

TINYpulse does a great job of defining the two terms:

• Employee satisfaction is the state of a worker enjoying their job — but not necessarily being engaged with it. Imagine the employee who shows up to work early and leaves late without contributing much or breaking a sweat.
• Employee engagement occurs when workers are committed to helping their companies achieve all of their goals. Engaged employees are motivated to show up to work every day and do everything within their power to help their companies succeed.

No organisation should settle into a comfort zone and just assume that its employees are engaged in the company’s goals. In fact, an organisation needs a number of tools such as surveys, group discussions and one-on-one meetings which can help in accurately monitoring employee engagement in real time. This not only affects the well-being of the employees but also fosters a positive working environment and in turn impacts the organization’s bottom line.

Employee engagement is essential because of the following reasons:

• It helps maintain the business profitability. When the employees of an organisation believe and are invested in the overall business goals of the company, they help in encouraging the business towards greater profits.
• It helps identify and improve new customer offerings. Engaged employees are more willing to share new ideas with their managers which can increase the scope for innovation not only for an individual but also for the company. Since employees and managers are the ones who go out into the field, speak to customers and prospective partners, it facilitates them to gather beneficial information which can be utilised in their own organisation.
• It helps avert unnecessary costs of employees. Recruitment is one of the biggest costs of an organisation, especially where there’s a high turnover. If employees are well engaged, it is less likely that they will quit.. In fact, such employees will continue to be productive and contribute towards the overall profit of an organisation.

The need to monitor employee engagement

It’s imperative to have a system in place for tracking and improving employee engagement in order to ensure that a company is creating a culture in which employees are not only satisfied, but genuinely engaged in the organization’s mission and goals.

As a result, engaged employees:

• Are driven to achieve their targets which promotes the ulterior motive of profit-maximisation in an organisation.
• Collaborate on ideas to improve business processes and outcomes.
• Are charged with positive energy which boosts morale and enhances productivity.

Employee satisfaction is essential to the success of any business and is inversely related to attrition rates. Thus, keeping employees motivated towards their careers should be a major priority for every employer.

There are multiple reasons employees can become discouraged (or disillusioned) with their jobs and resign, including high stress, lack of communication within the company, lack of recognition, or limited opportunity for growth.

Management should have a positive effect on the employees and seek to support their happiness and growth.

The significance of employee satisfaction in an organisation

• A happy employee is a good employee

It’s quite obvious that as a company, you want to hire the best to do the best possible job. However, identifying different working styles of employees – whether they perform best as a team-player or are individually-driven is crucial. This will help you as the manager in assigning tasks to your team based on their caliber and level of comfort. A happy employee is a good employee.

• Employee Retention

When you hire those high class employees for your company, you want to make sure that they are there for the long term. There’s plenty of cost involved in the hiring process and we’d obviously not like to be dealing with them on a repetitive basis. There are of course, some organisations that do not place a lot of value on employee retention, as occasionally the job market is such that there is a surplus of people willing to work for you. However, the best companies realize that employee retention is incredibly important, as it creates a much better work environment, creates a better brand image, healthy competition for places, and less wasted time and resources on hiring.

Employee appreciation is one of the best ways to increase employee retention.

• Increased Productivity

If people know that their hard work will pay off and will be rewarded, they are likely to be more motivated. Not only does good employee satisfaction create a happier set of employees, it also increases productivity. The increased productivity is welcome as it does not come at the cost of high stress or unhappy work environment; rather it comes as a direct result of a satisfied workforce , comprised of team members who are willing to give their best to the company.

This makes it worthwhile to spend extra money and resources on some form of a reward program for your employees.

• Creating a community

A happy workplace creates a sense of community and binds all employees as a whole with a group of individuals who will give their all for the each other and the company. People want to work for you, employees want to stay in the company, and the publicity spreads to create the sort of company that thrives in this modern business world.

In today’s cut-throat job market, employers cannot afford to disregard the costs associated with unhappy employees. Traditional employers cannot afford to make the mistake of believing that their employees are stuck in their current positions and will tolerate unpleasant working environments. Many reasons for employee dissatisfaction are well within the control of the firm and good management practices will enable a company to diminish, or remove, those reasons.

Satisfied employees will work harder for the company and plan to stay at the company, ultimately reducing that company’s labor costs. Some companies place a lot of value and resources on reward programs to make sure that employees are kept happy which in turn, convert into real profit for the company.

Employee engagement and satisfaction are two factors that need to be monitored continuously for the long term health of the organisation.