How to Increase Employee Satisfaction for the Good of Your Business

Increasing job satisfaction not only benefits them but also the business as a whole. Many studies have shown how management strategies that benefits from employee satisfaction include a more productive workforce and a more successful business overall. Large modern enterprises like Google are a fine example of how looking after staff will lead to fantastic gains. In fact, if you explore, you will discover that many of the most successful companies around the world take job satisfaction seriously.

To avoid employee turnover and the poor image this creates for customers, you need to do all you can to increase employee job satisfaction. There are quite a few ways of doing this, and it may be a case of experimenting with different approaches until you find what works with your company. It should be something a bit more significant than picking an “Employee of the month” though.

Increased autonomy = increased employee satisfaction

One cause of complaint among staff is often concerned with scheduling. Managers often neglect workers’ private lives instead of factoring them into scheduling decisions. One way of increasing employee job satisfaction is by introducing a self-scheduling scheme. This puts the control of the schedule in the hands of the staff themselves. They are able to choose their time off as they see fit; it will be up to them to ensure that each shift is fully staffed and that they work their contract hours. The staff members gain a better understanding of the process this way, which increases their job satisfaction.

Giving your staff more responsibility and autonomy is a great way to increase employee job satisfaction. If you trust your employees to do the tasks assigned to them without constantly looking over their shoulder, they will go the extra mile. It will make them feel like they are trusted and they will likely reward this trust. A task will go from being something that they are expected to do to being something that is “their” responsibility.

Improving communication

To increase employee job satisfaction, you also need to establish good communication practices. Staff should be allowed to be critical and to feel they can raise concerns in a non-threatening environment. If employees are afraid to speak, they are unlikely to put much effort into the job and they will probably want to leave as soon as possible. If the employee has an idea, they should be listened to respectfully. Their idea can even benefit the business.

One thing that you must avoid if you want to increase employee job satisfaction is constant change or uncertainty in regards to what is expected of the employee. The staff member should always know what they need to do to keep the business successful. If they don’t, they can easily stop trying.