An All-In-One Guide To Boost Employee Job Satisfaction
The best performers in a company are always the ones enjoying their work. It is because your “projects” turn into their “passion,” which increases commitment and result. This phenomenon at work only arises job satisfaction at all levels.
Satisfaction is also a vital element in all work form. The sense of fulfillment one gets from work is a reward in itself. In this regard, you must find ways to boost the level of satisfaction of your employess in the workplace. To do so, first, you must understand the concept well.
So, without further adieu, here’s what you need to understand today. Let’s start with the basics.
Table of Contents
What is Job Satisfaction?
Job Satisfaction of the employees can be defined as positive response of an individual towards his/her job. The higher this metric, the better it is for a company. It contributes to employee engagement, retention, and optimized productivity.
Researchers categorize satisfaction in two forms. These are affective satisfaction and cognitive satisfaction.
Affective satisfaction means a total of pleasurable emotions from the job. It also takes into account its effect on one’s life. Cognitive satisfaction means one’s happiness through rational means of the job like responsibilities, pay, designation, etc.
For better understanding, let's shed some lights on some of the key features. So, following are the three basic ones.
Features of Job Satisfaction
- Job satisfaction is intangible. Recognizing or measuring it is only possible by understanding the way workers behave in the workplace.
- It is proportionate with one’s expectations and outcomes in the workplace and the management. When the results are in tune with the expectations, it enhances the satisfaction of the employees and vice versa.
- Job Satisfaction and Employee Satisfaction are two different elements. Feeling satisfied in his/her job is with one’s feelings. Employee Satisfaction is the feelings towards other individuals and the company.
Benefits of Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction has many benefits to an organization. Some of the most notable are:
- Lowers voluntary turnover
- Reduces Employee Absenteeism
- Reduces long-term HR costs
- Contributes positive results towards Employee Referral Programs
- Boosts Employee Productivity
- Increases Employee Retention
Understanding its benefits, having satisfaction in the job for the employess is very essential for every business.
Now, to the tough question of “how to make employees' satisfied”?
There are many common factors to improve satisfaction like salary, an Employee Benefits Package, job security, working conditions, etc. These are the ones you might already know, so here’s something different for you today!
Factors Affecting Job Satisfaction Besides the Obvious
1. Age
Satisfaction has a significant relation with age. It means older workers have higher job satisfaction than newer employees.
It is because with longevity in career comes many benefits. These are employee perks, better work understanding, progression, ranks, etc.
All these translate to more satisfied employees in the workplace.
2. Leadership
Job satisfaction in leadership positions is often high. It’s because employees feel more valued when they are in a power position and can show their leadership skills.
A position of leadership helps them be more productive at work. It builds high levels of workforce satisfaction.
Related Article: 9 Leadership Styles With Their Characteristics, Pros, and Cons
3. Challenges
Ethical challenges in an organization give the workers a chance to grow. It has a positive impact on their career trajectory and feel satisfied at the same time. Furthermore, these challenges also mean trust in management, which increases job satisfaction.
4. Responsibilities
Job roles wherein a higher degree of responsibility are involved often adds to higher job satisfaction.
It is because people expect to feel valued and appreciated for work done. When an individual gets ample responsibility, it shows the management’s trust in him/her.
This helps in bringing about a sense of value and makes employees happy.
But, if bombarded with lots of responsibility, it creates a negative effect. This negative effect gives rise to employee burnout. It diminishes employee satisfaction and employee experience.
It is important to note here that the amount of responsibilities delegated is fair.
5. Creativity in the Workplace
Routine work often bores a worker, which often leads to job dissatisfaction. Allowing a sense of creativity in the workplace makes things interesting. It helps the workforce grow and puts a stop to a monotonous work cycle.
This sense of creativity gives the workers freedom wherein they can express their work better. It breaks the repetitive day to day cycle, which helps restore fulfillment and satisfaction.
6. Personal Interest
Having a personal interest in the job one does is an essential factor.
It is because here, the job work is more of a hobby, which never ceases to bore the individual.
So, if your employees are truly passionate about their work, they will have higher satisfaction. Here, you must put effort also into matching workers to their passionate field of work.
7. Flexibility
Flexibility in work is desirable for all employees concerned. A flexible work environment and working hours give the employees the gift of time, which boosts employee satisfaction.
Moreover, everyone is productive in their own given time. As an organization, employers can receive more out of a flexible work environment.
8. Two-way Feedback
Proper feedback is vital for every individual to grow. It includes an organization as well. Feedback is a two-way street wherein it must be received professionally as well. Many organizations fail to address this and fall prey to employee attrition.
An employee will record a higher sense of satisfaction if the company listens to his/her feedback on the management. Here, when an employee’s voice is valued, it shows equality and professionalism. These attributes multiply employee satisfaction in the workplace.
9. Performance Management
Promotion is an aspect every worker works very hard for and aspires. For securing better employee satisfaction, it is not only enough to exercise employee promotion.
It would help if you also did it at the right time. If an individual is working hard, then you must not keep the due promotion for long.
Usually, your interval in promoting employees should be less than the duration of average employee tenure. Say, an average tenure of your organization is three years. Here, your promotion appraisals should take place between 2 years.
If you feel an employee isn’t ready for a promotion, then you must train that individual. Adopting this method will bring a rise in the job satisfaction of your employees.
Related Article: Employee Demotion- Meaning, Causes, Decision, How to Handle
10. Trust
Most of the time, employers fail to deliver on the promises and contracts to employees. Despite the circumstances, it always has a very negative effect on employees. Delaying promised increment of promotion due to rising competition or lack of revenue is one such example out of many.
A loss of trust upon the employer by the employee leads to massive job dissatisfaction and attrition.
11. Micromanagement
Micromanagement is a killer of time, trust, productivity, and job satisfaction. Constant scrutiny of employees makes them feel suffocated and limits their creativity and productivity.
Furthermore, the employer's absent trust factor upon the employee's work harms work satisfaction to an enormous extent. This aspect of management style often chases employees away.
Here, you must understand that satisfaction is a relative term and it might differ from person to person.
For example, while constant official traveling may bring employee satisfaction to one employee, it may not be the case for others. The same can be the case with an informal office environment, variety with work allotted, changing work shifts, etc.
Now, to wrap this up, let's have a brief look at how to improve job satisfaction.
Ways to Improve Job Satisfaction
1. Rewards and Recognition:
Always be quick to reward excellent work. Timely recognition of a worker's efforts will boost their confidence and make them happy and satisfaction. Here, you must deliver proper rewards and recognition in place beforehand to further sweeten the deal.
2. Employee Retention:
Be sure to keep the workers for the long-term instead of the short term. It means reassuring workers that they can rely on a future with the company. Make your workers understand that they are there to be a part of the family and not a project. In making them stay, you should have better employee development opportunities like promotion, training, etc.
3. Encourage Employee Health:
Employee health is a big deal in the workplace today. Nowadays, millennials want to work in an office where they care about their workforce. In his regard, you must have good corporate health programs in order.
4. Offer Constructive Feedback:
Every employer must understand that they need constructive feedback to grow as a unit. In this regard, you should give importance to your employee's opinions. When you act on your worker's view, they feel valued. It makes them feel great about the company and themselves, which results in better satisfaction.
5. Respond better to Employees' feedback:
Most employers disregard any criticism they get from their employees. It is an unfair practice that diminishes job satisfaction. You must respond well to constructive criticism and work on developing yourself.
6. Don't Micromanage:
For better job satisfaction, you must avoid micromanagement at all costs. It shows that you don't trust your workforce's ability, which hurts their work and attitude. In the end, it is sure to bite into your workforce's satisfaction levels.
Conclusion
That marks the end of the list—a few facets of job satisfaction for you to know. You must know here that there are no definite elements of overall job satisfaction.
As managers, you must go the extra mile to meet max employee satisfaction in your workforce and go beyond the myths. The days where it was perceived that only a big salary is much more important than job satisfaction are over.
To avoid job dissatisfaction in work-life today, you must know your employees first. You can do this through means of employee engagement survey. When you understand them, only then can you know the important factors influencing satisfaction.
Research shows that 8 out of 10 workers are unsatisfied with work. You must make sure that this fact doesn’t apply to your organization. Make sure that your human resource management department works hard to ensure job satisfaction at all levels.
As human beings, we spend most of our time either preparing for or engaging in employment.
So, to be truly happy, we must be one with our job satisfaction. It is not only necessary from an employer’s point of view but also for a healthy life.
We hope you have a place where employees are always satisfied with their jobs.
This article is written by Jyoti Prakash Barman. He is an in-house Content Marketer at Vantage Circle with interests in music and automobiles. For any related queries, contact editor@vantagecircle.com
