9 Best Practices to Keep Employee Satisfaction High

What is Employee Satisfaction?

Employee satisfaction is the level of happiness or contentment an employee feels for his/her job. Employee satisfaction is an essential aspect of any business or organization.

When employees are happy and satisfied with the management and work culture, they put their best effort to make the company successful.

If the employees in an organization are not happy and content, it directly impacts the bottom line.

When employees’ needs are met they develop a positive outlook towards the organization and its goals. When employees are dissatisfied and unhappy with their jobs, they lose their motivation and tend to underperform.

Key reasons for employee dissatisfaction

• Low compensation
• Lack of Career growth
• Poor Management
• Poor Relation with Co-workers and Managers
• Lack of Appreciation and Recognition
• Poor Work-Life Balance

Here are the 9 Best Practices to Keep Employee Satisfaction High

1. A Positive Work Environment

A positive work environment has a significant influence on how the employees feel. The work environment plays a vital role in keeping the employees motivated. It significantly influences his/her work life. It reflects in the work they do and helps sustain positivity throughout the day.

A positive work environment doesn’t only mean the organizational structure. It is the overall experience an employee shares with his/her co-workers, immediate supervisors, and company culture.

Create a positive work environment through-

• Open communication
• Building trust
• Building healthy work relationships
• Listening and promoting equal opportunities

Related: 8 Actionable Ways to Improve Workplace Environment

2. Feedback

We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve. – Bill Gates

We all need and crave feedback, and your employees are no different.

Feedback is critical to employee satisfaction, and most of the managers are uncertain when it comes to giving feedback. Lack of employee feedback makes the employees unsure about the work and effort they are putting. Human psychology is complicated, and people can receive the same message or dialogue differently

Managers should, therefore, master the tricks of giving feedback. The positive effects of feedback are immense in the workplace. It can build trust, employee satisfaction, keep the employees motivated and reduce turnover.

The best ways to give healthy feedback are

• The positive intent.
• It should be constructive.
• It should be genuine.
• Don’t wait, give your feedback immediately.

3. Rewards and Recognition

According to OfficeTeam’s study, 66% of employees say they would “likely leave their job if they didn’t feel appreciated.

Each of us has unique skill sets, and we consciously or subconsciously apply those at our jobs. It is, therefore, rewarding for anybody to be appreciated for the application of these skills. When employees are rewarded and recognized for their work, it builds employee morale, productivity, and overall employee satisfaction or job satisfaction.

Organizations often miss out on this psychological aspect. Appreciating and recognizing employees from time to time keeps employees motivated. This energizes them to thrive to do better and outdo themselves. You can also offer valuable benefits and perks to your employees to boost their morale and job satisfaction.

Related: The Ultimate Guide To Employee Rewards and Recognition

4. Work-life Balance and Employee Satisfaction

Work-life balance helps employees to balance their professional and personal lives. Balancing work-life in today’s world is quite challenging, and many a time can become burdensome.

Employees keep themselves occupied with the different aspects of their personal and professional lives. And that plays a crucial role in their satisfaction and employee happiness. Long, tight work schedules, and too much workload often make it difficult for them to balance them.

Management can, therefore, help its employees to bring a balance in work life. Here are some actionable steps:

• Initiating work-life balance programs
• To have one to one interactions
• To provide flexible work hours
• Giving them enough time for relaxation and leisure

Related: 11 Best Ways To Achieve Work-Life Balance

5. Involve and Engage your Employees

When you involve and engage your employees, it builds employee satisfaction. Teams that work together with involvement are happier and satisfied. The best way to encourage employees is to make them fully involved. To hear them out in need. To make them realize that they are equally important, and their contribution and hard work are always appreciated.

Work-life can be hectic and burdensome at times. When you involve and engage your employees deliberately, it reduces employee turnover and enhances employee satisfaction.

Related: Employee Involvement: Why it Matters in Every Organization

6. Develop Employee Skills

Helping employees develop their skill sets is also one of the attributes of employee satisfaction. When you give your employees room for developing their skills, it boosts their job satisfaction and increases work efficiency. This also signifies that, along with your organizational growth, you even care about their career development.

Evaluating if the employees want to learn something new or need any specific training is always a good practice. Lack of this management approach often makes the employees dissatisfied. Since they feel they have nothing left to learn.

7. Evaluate and Measure Employee Satisfaction

Many small/big organizations conduct biannual or yearly employee engagement surveys. They put up questions on the categories like teamwork, feedback, information, work-life balance, work relationship, self-evaluation, and so on. This is an excellent practice unless it becomes monotonous or complacent. Since work culture is diverse from one organization to another, therefore the surveys can be designed accordingly.

Let’s say management can put an employee suggestion box to hear employees out anonymously. Employees can put any simple suggestions they want to make or write anything that bothers them.

One of the other evaluation practice is one-on-one reviews. This could be very effective to know about employee dissatisfaction and its attributes. Management would this way see if they are satisfied with their jobs. This would allow the employees to talk about their discontentment, aspirations, and goals. This would foster satisfaction and engagement and what employees expect from the organization.

8. Employee Well-being

‘Health is wealth’ is an overused phrase but holds true to its meaning. Employers who do not emphasize employees’ physical, emotional, psychological, and financial well-being build an inefficient workforce. It is vital to building a work culture for the employees’ well-being needs. Employees who are healthy and stress-free have better productivity and a greater sense of responsibility towards their job. The feeling of security keeps them more engaged and dedicated. Therefore, employers must provide them with corporate wellness programs or sessions and monitor their behavior to foster a positive culture.

9. Clearly defined Goals and Objectives

You may have best team working for you, but if you do not have goals and objectives in place, you would slowly kill their enthusiasm. Your team needs directions throughout their work-life cycle. When an organization fails to provide clear objectives or company values, it leads to employee dissatisfaction. Employees do not only work for a paycheck. For their satisfaction at work, they also need a direction and a sense of purpose that keeps them going. At the end of the day, we all want to do meaningful work and make a difference.

In Summary

Organizations must be aware of these practices to improve employee satisfaction and employee engagement. Satisfied employees would always put their best foot forward and work towards the bottom line. When you know what diminishes employee satisfaction and help your employees to give the best employee experience. That’s when you build a team that will help you achieve milestones.

Related: 11 Factors Affecting Job Satisfaction Besides the Obvious

This article is written by Braja Deepon Roy. He works as a Content Creator and Digital Marketer at Vantage Circle. He actively participates in the growth of corporate culture and keeps himself updated in this space. For any related queries, contact editor@vantagecircle.com