Some say that employee satisfaction means they employee engagement . What’s wrong with this belief is that for starters, employers take this feeling of being satisfied to stem from what’s being given in return aka. a salary. Secondly, it’s not always true because you can totally be satisfied with your job but it might not be enough of an incentive to get you showing up to work every day. The problem here is that; you’re left with unmotivated individuals who aren’t fully contributing to your organisation. Not just that, but now you have to deal with productivity constraints against your KPI’s.
When we talk about employees feeling satisfied, it delves much deeper past the surface of a salary incentive. It should navigate around the concept of fulfilment. This fulfilment is basically satisfying the need to develop personally and professionally in our careers. It’s something that most employees of today’s modern society strive towards. Why? Because they feel of worth and value. They feel empowered and confident with their position in life giving them a sense of purpose to achieve. Providing this opportunity to grow personally and professionally is what will really get your employees coming back for more. What I mean by this is, it’s more of an incentive to show up to work on days where motivation is low.
How to understand employee satisfaction further?
I’ll put it into perspective for you using something most of us should be familiar with (if you’re not – you’re definitely living under a rock). Do you know that feeling where you’ve just caught a rare Pokémon only to find it escape from you? You want to smash your phone and quit the game forever right? You don’t however. Because you keep reloading the game another five more times hoping that Dragonite will pop up again. Do you see this determination just to catch a Pokémon? If you end up doing so, that’s great – you’ve caught yourself a rare Pokémon. That’s just the surface however. When we delve deeper, we actualise our fulfilment in becoming the best Pokémon trainer out there as you gain more of them. That there, is the real satisfaction. You’re bound to keep catching more knowing you’re already in the middle of fulfilling your dream of becoming the best (that no one ever was).
Why should you satisfy properly?
Now that we’ve gotten our heads around the truth behind what really satisfies to engage our employees, we should understand its importance. Commitment is one for starters and it’s what really stems the rest of the benefits of satisfaction to engage employees. When you develop commitment within your employees to your organisation, that’s what makes them keen for more. You essentially engage them further into your organisation. Other benefits of employee satisfaction can include:
- Increased Productivity – Knowing that you can fulfil your desires will motivate you to work harder for more results right?
- Innovation Sparks – Ideas will flow like never before when you’re given the opportunity to make your dreams a reality, only because you find the willingness to think beyond borders.
- High quality of work – Work produced is up to scratch because 110% is put in, knowing that your contributions are of importance to the organisation, and you are of high value.
- Retention rate increases – Like I said earlier, your employees are bound to come back for more when they know what’s in it for them.
- Less training required – When your employees are actively learning themselves, the amount of time and effort put in on your end to train them no longer has to be as dense as expected.
- Fewer accidents – These accidents can be from errors in work produced or even hazardous accidents to an employees’ mental or physical wellbeing. Being either of the two, it’ll be minimised because your employee actively is more receptive.
Employee Satisfaction done well
Other than not understanding the reasons why leaders should adopt different ways of seeing how to satisfy employees, another area that lacks attention is knowing how. How you satisfy your employees plays a far greater deal because you’re actually fostering for change. This change is basically the change in motivation and level of engagement your employee will have with your organisation – so take note:
- Invest in your employees’ personal growth – Encourage them to go after what they’ve always wanted to. It could be training to be a black belt or so. Offer them the right support to achieve this, such as lessons.
- Give trust – Make your employees feel at ease with where they’re trying to achieve their desires. Let them know that they can trust you to provide that.
- Form a relationship with your employee – As part of trust, it’ll involve you going out your way to develop a relationship with them where you can talk things other than business. Let them know you can be a friend too.
- Recognise & Reward them – By recognising your employees’ achievements and rewarding them it shows that you care about their accomplishments. It also makes them feel that they are very capable of achieving and probably will push for more.
- Provide skill workshops and regular training – Their professional development with your organisation doesn’t just stem from doing the same tasks for the role. Allow them to learn new things that may surprisingly be of their interest.
There’s most likely an endless list of ways to address employee satisfaction in order to engage them, but the ones mentioned above are stand outs. While change is something not many look towards, it’s something leaders should consider when re-evaluating the ways, they help satisfy their employees at work. This change shouldn’t be seen as time consuming and costly but rather an investment. What you put in for your employees will definitely see a lot coming back from them.