A company will experience confusion if it experiences great resignation or high turnover. Finding new talent and teaching them until they can perform according to expectations will take time, and company revenues will slow because talent is difficult to retain. This is the reason why employee satisfaction is the most essential thing in the business world. This article will tell you how to improve employee satisfaction so that your company can reduce turnover and retain the top talent.
Why is job satisfaction important?
Job satisfaction is important to measure whether employees are comfortable in the company and like their job. When employees are satisfied or happy, they will not feel like leaving their company, which leads to more productivity and high morale for the organization.
Job satisfaction can be obtained from many factors, starting from the nature of the work, workplace relationships, pay and benefits, and career development opportunities. It's quite difficult to quantify, but companies must keep trying to find out how to improve employee satisfaction.
How does job satisfaction affect employee performance?
Employee satisfaction shows how employees will do their work. Employees with high satisfaction will have better performance in how they complete their duties than those who are dissatisfied with their company. For example, employees who enjoy office conditions and have good relationships with coworkers tend to be more motivated to complete any tasks, while employees who do not have trust in the company and have many conflicts with coworkers tend to work alone and are not goal oriented.
10 strategies about how to improve employee satisfaction
Happy employees will be more eager to complete tasks well and take pride in their work. Not only from an individual perspective, but they also have a high desire to collaborate with coworkers and have loyalty to the company. Let's look at how to improve employee satisfaction.
- Prioritize wellness
Every worker has enough on their mind and sometimes neglects their own well-being because they are too busy. Prioritizing employee's wellness is essential to obtain employee satisfaction. The way to get job satisfaction from thinking about employee's wellness is to hold yoga classes online or directly at the office by bringing in a yoga instructor.
- Promote social connection
Social connections can have multiple functions. Apart from improving job satisfaction, it is also an employee engagement initiative. Every worker wants to have a supportive work bestie who makes every work day enjoyable. Colleagues who can respect each other can create a positive work environment and are likely to be happier with their job. If one of the employees experiences trouble or problems, coworkers will be there to encourage them and try to solve the problem together.
Another way to start a social connection is to create a special event to bring employees together to do something fun other than work. You can invite team members for lunch or dinner, watching movies together, hiking, picnics, or other outdoor activities. Carrying out activities outside of work will give each employee time to get to know each other, get closer personally, and strengthen team bonds.
- Celebrate employee milestones
Employee milestones are not only about what employees do, but can also celebrate work anniversaries, employee's birthdays, or special days to make them feel valued by celebrating their important days and their contributions to the company. By celebrating employee milestones, you can show that the office cares about employee's loyalty and dedication to the office. Employees who feel appreciated and valued will stay in the office and try to achieve career growth. How to celebrate? By holding an office party, giving a day off, or offering meaningful gifts on their special day.
- Recognizing employee’s hard work
Every employee needs appreciation and attention from the company. Consider what you can do to reward your employees for their hard work, so that your team can provide the best performance and consistently feel recognized. If employees are never appreciated, they feel that the work they do will not have any impact on career development or office progress.
Employee Recognition Examples for Your Business Progress
Appreciation can start from simple things, such as saying "thank you" or "great work". Positive words from managers to team members can be a booster to maintain good performances and try your best even though the work at hand is difficult.
- Cultivate a positive work environment
Toxic workplace is something that must be avoided in every organization. We need to conduct a survey of each individual, how the relationship between employees has been recently. Keep updated with work environment conditions, don't let any conflicts go unresolved. To reduce turnover and increase employee engagement, you can teach how to respect each other, do team bonding, and teach them to resolve conflicts calmly.
How to do it? Encourage your team during meetings at the beginning of the week, and give quotes or speeches to form a positive mindset. Hold a meeting if there are problems between team members, or if there are team difficulties that could hinder work. Let each employee express his opinion so that a sense of respect grows to listen to opinions and provide suggestions or criticism from fellow employees.
- Flexible work schedule
Working too many hours does not make employees' work results better or more completed. By providing flexible and sufficient working hours, employees can focus more on their work and not waste time resting because they are exhausted by long work hours. If available, you can schedule remote work, or adjust to team decisions for solid working hours.
The ideal time to work with focus is 6 hours. Moreover, employees will start to reduce their speed at work, because their energy will start to decrease, and they will start to lose focus. By providing flexibility, employees can be happier by utilizing their working time and be more productive.
- Let employees make decisions
Let each employee express their voice. Every opinion from employees can grow each individual's self-confidence, and they feel valued because their voices are taken into account when making decisions. Companies must be consistent in giving employees opportunities for their ideas to be implemented.
After some time has passed, employees can be given the opportunity to evaluate how their ideas are working so far. By getting employees used to conveying ideas and respecting other opinions, they have the soft skills to make good decisions for the company.
- Honest Feedback and suggestions
So far, most companies are the ones who can speak honestly when criticizing and giving advice to their employees, and there are still few opportunities for employees to convey their honest opinions for the good of the company. Survey your employees for their candid suggestions and feedback as a step to measure employee engagement.
If employees don't dare to express their honest feedback during meetings, make a suggestion box, and let them write on paper any suggestions and feedback for the office. This allows employees to feel at ease by conveying their concerns while growing their loyalty to the organization.
- Encourage creativity
Not all employees have the desire to convey their ideas or opinions. Encourage employee's creativity by brainstorming, allow your employees to use their imagination about the business and try to create strategies according to their mindset. Give each individual time to convey their ideas, and require each employee to at least convey their opinion.
An employee who is encouraged to unleash their creative side will grow in satisfaction and feel more fulfilled with their job. Creativity can also equip every employee to always be open to business developments, think flexibly, and be satisfied with their mindset which can have a good impact on the company.
- Create a transparent culture
A transparent work culture will create a positive work environment, because employees have free space for communicating and exchanging ideas. A good company not only demands good results from employees, but also informs each individual that the office is in good condition. Talking too much about office problems will burden employees' minds, but this can be relieved by telling good news about the progress of the office.
Without a transparent work culture, employees will feel distrust of managers or higher-ups. Employees will also feel like they are always being asked for results, without any feedback that employees can feel even though they know they have worked hard and produced impressive results.
