On a scale of one to ten, what’s the state of your company’s employee engagement? Do you think workers are happy to work in your organization?
If you answer yes, my next question would be, ‘how can you be so sure?’ Human beings have a long history of hiding their feelings and pretending to be okay even when they are not. Perhaps your workers are just putting up a happy face to make you think all is well.
In any case, this post will teach you some methods you can use to determine whether people are happy to work for you or not.
Why you should care about employee satisfaction
A happy worker is a productive worker. If your employees are satisfied with all the conditions that surround their jobs, you can bet they will be happy to discharge their duties the way they ought to. And your business will benefit greatly from this.
On the flip side, if your workers are dissatisfied with certain aspects of the job, it’s almost certain their productivity will drop, and the business will gravely suffer for it.
So you see, an investment in employee satisfaction is indirectly an investment in your business success.
The importance of measuring employee satisfaction
As you’ll soon discover, measuring employee satisfaction costs time, money, and skills. And that’s why a lot of organizations refuse to commit to it.
But you need to look past the cost. Measuring employee satisfaction has some benefits, such as;
Employee retention:
If you measure employee satisfaction, you will know how your workers feel. And you can use that information to improve on things they find dissatisfying.
Once your workers are satisfied with everything concerning their job, you can bet they will not want to leave. By and large, this is a great strategy for retaining talents.
Higher productivity:
When someone is satisfied with their job, they don’t need extra motivation to work their socks off. Without being told, they will put in the shift.
Positive energy:
If many of your workers are dissatisfied with their jobs, you can rest assured they will create bad vibes and exhibit toxicity in the workplace. In contrast, when you have a team of satisfied employees, the workplace will be a happy place for everyone.
Quote:
According to Emilia Flores, the co-founder of UKBadCreditLoans, “If businesses put the same energy in employee satisfaction as they do in fund sourcing, chances are they will realize greater outputs, turn more profits, and ultimately boost their bottom lines faster.”
How to measure employee satisfaction in your organization
There are a number of steps you can take to measure employee satisfaction in your organization. Below are a few of them:
1. The survey method
The simplest way to find out whether your workers are happy and satisfied with their jobs is to ask them through a survey. Inviting employees to your office and asking whether or not they’re happy may not yield good results. Some of them may be reluctant to open up because of the fear of saying something that might get them in trouble. Particularly if they performing remote jobs then this method is the best among all.
But with surveys, employees know their opinions are anonymous. And so, they’re a bit freer to say their minds.
You can use tools like Google Forms to set up your survey. Google Forms are free and simple to use. As such, workers shouldn’t have any difficulty navigating the interface.
You can make the survey questions open-ended, multiple-choice questions, or a mix of both. It all depends on what you feel will fetch you the best insights.
Here are some employee satisfaction survey questions to inspire you:
- On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your job experience in this company?
- Do you think the company does enough to cater to employee welfare?
- Would you consider your job stressful, manageable, or balanced?
- Do you feel like you’re sometimes overburdened with tasks?
- Given a chance, would you leave this job for a similar role elsewhere?
Of course, these are just examples. Feel free to ask as many questions as possible. The point is to gather all the information you can get.
2. The employee satisfaction index (ESI) method
The employee satisfaction index is a scientific way of determining employee satisfaction at work. It involves asking employees three specific questions and then calculating an index using the formula below.
ESI = X 100
The three ESI questions include:
- How satisfied are you with your current workplace?
- How well does your current workplace meet your expectations?
- How close is your current workplace to your ideal job?
Employees must answer these questions on a scale of 1 to 10. The mean value of the three answers is then calculated and inputted into the formula above. The final ESI number should be a number in the range of 1 to 100. The higher the ESI number, the greater the employee satisfaction in your workplace.
3. Install suggestion boxes
You can learn about employee satisfaction by encouraging workers to leave their opinions in suggestion boxes.
As you can imagine, your workers probably have so much to say. So, installing suggestion boxes around the workplace might be the push they need to finally voice their opinions.
If a week passes and you don’t get any suggestions in the boxes, do not hesitate to take it up with your workers. Ask them why no one has had anything to say about the week’s work. Let them know that you expect at least someone to express their dissatisfaction with some of the company’s approaches.
By and large, encourage workers to use the suggestion boxes as much as possible.
4. Hold 1-on-1 meetings
Another way to find out whether your workers are happy to work for you is by having a heart-to-heart conversation with them. I know we said earlier that some employees might be reluctant to say their minds when asked directly, but sometimes, you may be left with no choice.
Of course, you need to approach this kind of conversation in a unique way. First of all, you need to make them feel super comfortable with you. And that means starting with questions that peek into their personal lives.
For example, you can start by saying, “what’s your current emotional state?” “are you facing some challenges in life that’s stopping you from reaching your goals?”
Once you’re done with the personal life gist, you can then get into the details of their job experience.
If done well, this method can give you a deep insight into how people feel about working in your space.
