Among an employer’s goals should be finding employees who are productive. If building a team of happy, hardworking individuals is your main goal – what can you do to get there? You need to help create an environment that is rich in employee satisfaction.
The trouble with creating job satisfaction? It isn’t always easy to achieve. However, if you want to build a productive workforce, then you need to put some time and effort into creating job satisfaction for your company’s employees.
Are Satisfaction and Performance Connected?
Many studies have shown that investing in improving job satisfaction is a good move for any business. As many different studies and articles show, employee satisfaction is one of the strongest predictors of long-term positive company performance.
Loyalty is another positive side effect job satisfaction. Your employees tend to feel a link to your company, and often will recognize that the work they do will have an effect on the overall success of the company. They will be less likely to move to other companies, and may even recommend your business as a place to work.
Employees View Satisfaction Differently
What satisfies one person might not satisfy the next. Some employees will value flexibility in their working patterns, others will need to feel challenged during their working day.
Age is another factor to consider when thinking about job satisfaction. Older workers, are by nature, much more satisfied in their roles. Often they have worked for a considerable amount of time within their career or the company itself. They will often feel more satisfied if they are challenged within their day-to-day work. Younger workers, on the other hand, may feel more satisfied if they receive benefits that can help with their family life, as well as feel happy that their roles can progress as time moves on.
Factors Affecting Job Satisfaction
Understanding why job satisfaction is so important, read further for a few ways to learn about specific factors that can improve job satisfaction within your company.
Factor #1 Respect
One of the simplest things you can do to improve job satisfaction amongst your employees is make sure that they feel respected. To show that you value and respect those who work so hard for you, you need to be honest and authentic with your work ethic, let them be involved in some of the decision-making aspects of the business and help them to develop their own potential.
Factor #2 Trust
Another factor affecting job satisfaction is establishing trust in your employees. It is important to understand the ways that you can improve trust levels between you and your staff.
Employers should encourage their employees to trust their bosses, despite the difference in seniority or rank. Everyone should feel comfortable interacting with their superiors. Despite what hardliners may believe, bosses should treat their employees as partners, not just as subordinates.
Employers should also encourage better relations among coworkers. A healthy support system works to ease stress once people understand that they can rely on each other in a time of need. Without proper stress management techniques, the workplace can become a ripe ground for conflicts that can erode trust.
Factor #3 Security
If you went to work every day not knowing whether your position was secure, then chances are low that you would have a positive workplace experience. Employees who are unsure of their job security are more likely to feel anxious and much less likely to be satisfied in their roles. One simple way to improve feelings of job security is to be honest in your communications and always be transparent in the things that your employees can expect.
Factor #4 Environment
A healthy working environment is much more likely to be a place that people want to work. Those who have high levels of job satisfaction work in a place that has high morale, is free from stress and has a low or non-existent rate of harassment or discriminatory incidents.
A positive work culture emphasizes openness and freedom of expression. Individuals should be free to voice out unpopular opinions without fear of retaliation. People within a positive work culture should embrace diverse ideas. While leaders should not ignore mistakes, the focus should be on providing constructive criticism designed to make employees learn from their errors.
Factor #5 Career Path
No matter the career, if employees feel that there is no hope for progression, they are not going to feel satisfied. If employees feel they can excel and move on, they are much more likely to want to work hard in their current role. It is important that employees understand that they can grow within their roles, that there are not only new career paths open to them, but developmental opportunities as well.
However, it’s not enough to provide opportunities for career advancement. The company should also ensure that leaders distribute these opportunities equitably. People who show much potential should receive the best opportunities. Employers should be wary of corruption that leads people to favor others unfairly. Favoritism and nepotism in the workplace can poison the sense motivating voice of opportunity within a company.
Factor #6 Compensation
Employees come to work to earn money. However, this is less important than it might seem. Sure, competitive pay is key in attracting and keeping employees, but employers can also make employees feel better by offering a range of benefits. This includes health care, wellbeing in the workplace and family help such as childcare vouchers and flexible working.
Employers should still provide tangible rewards, such as competitive compensation and generous benefits. They should make sure that employees get the rewards that they deserve for their hard work, while recognizing that money alone will not keep most employees satisfied.
A Subtle Recipe
Many factors go into forming links between satisfying employees and motivating them to do their best work. Artful integration of all of them recipe for success. Satisfied employees who feel a connection to the company where they work and their coworkers are less likely to be distracted and unproductive in many cases. Pay is of course an issue, but so are good and flexible benefits and advancement opportunities as part of the mix.
It pays off in the end analysis for employers to make the investment in time and energy needed to weave together a cohesive workplace where employees feel challenged and appreciated, but not bullied or stressed.
