Tips for increasing employee satisfaction

Although employee satisfaction is not the same as employee engagement, by following the tips listed below you can increase not only employee satisfaction but engagement too. And why is it so important to pay attention to employee satisfaction and engagement? You'll find out if you read on.

Increasing employee satisfaction matters

An earlier study by the Harvard Business Review shows that satisfied employees' productivity is 31% higher than that of their peers, and they carry out their tasks 19% more accurately. Of course, research also tells us that dissatisfied employees' performance is nearly 10% worse than average.

From all this we can conclude that a company's growth and performance are closely linked to employees' satisfaction and engagement. A satisfied employee performs better, and the greater the engagement they feel towards their employer, the longer they stay working there. That's exactly why it's extremely important to pay attention to increasing satisfaction.

This is how you can increase employee satisfaction

In what follows I'll present 8 tips on how to increase employee satisfaction. Even if you build just a few of them into your company culture, that alone will bring positive results.

1. Offer the kind of compensation package that's actually needed

This is a fairly obvious suggestion, and yet we have to mention it. Because although some companies do offer benefits on top of pay, they put them together based only on their own means and ideas. But you have to understand that if a company offers benefits that employees don't need, then for the employees it's as if the company offered them no fringe benefits at all.

That's why, to increase employee satisfaction, it's essential that, within your means, you put together a benefit package that covers employees' needs. Of course, for this you have to know your employees' needs and problems. It's worth holding focus-group discussions with employees about this, but you can also ask for feedback in a simpler survey. For example, through CHEQ you can send out a question like this: “Would you welcome a fringe benefit under which you and/or your immediate family members could receive discounted care at a private dental practice?” Employees can indicate with a Yes/No answer option how interested they are in this option. This way you can make a better decision when putting together the compensation package(s).

What's more, simply by asking for your employees' opinions you've already contributed to increasing employee satisfaction.

2. Recognise your employees' work

One survey showed that of the colleagues who received personal praise, 70% felt greater satisfaction towards their employer. Among those who received no recognition, this was only 39%. This is important to note because, as I wrote above, more satisfied employees perform better and do more.
So to increase employee satisfaction, you mustn't be stingy with words of praise. Everyone longs for their work to be recognised. This strengthens self-confidence and self-esteem too. What's more, positive reinforcement has a motivating effect. This is also indicated by the survey in which 37% of respondents said that if they received personal recognition for their work, they would become more motivated to perform better.

There are several ways to give recognition:

1. Companies that use CHEQ, for example, can also thank employees for their work in an announcement. This fills employees with pride, since they receive recognition in front of the whole company.
2. As a team leader, another possible approach is to hand a recognition/greeting card at the end of the month to the colleague who performed outstandingly that month.
3. Or you create a travelling award, which could even be a little toy from a Kinder Surprise egg. The point here is the gesture — that we recognise each other's work. The travelling award is just a symbol.

3. Celebrate the milestones

Regularly celebrating your employees also contributes to increasing satisfaction.

A congratulation, greeting or small gift sent through CHEQ (e.g. a company-logo T-shirt, bag, water bottle, mug, etc.)

• when the probation period ends, 
• on reaching work anniversaries, or
• on achieving other important milestones.

By celebrating the milestones, too, you express that the employee matters to you. What's more, through it you can also strengthen the sense of belonging to the community. Just think about it! After the probation period, the new colleague also gets the company T-shirt, proving that they're now a fully-fledged member of the community.

But you can also think of celebrating milestones as gamification. Gather up all the company's employee gift items. Create attractive rewards that only employees who have reached a milestone can receive.

Examples: 

• You've worked with us for 1 year — here's this special little gift item.
• You've successfully completed your first independent project/task — here's a special item that only those who've achieved this can receive.

It's worth defining the milestones according to the company's profile and the different fields, but based on the two examples above I think you get how to get started on the task.

4. Map out a career path

For white-collar workers it's almost essential, but it's increasingly important for blue-collar workers too to see a career path ahead of them that they can follow within the given company. In many cases, the lack of advancement opportunities makes employees so dissatisfied with their job that they may even switch because of it.

However, a jointly planned career path that takes into account the employee's individual goals as well as the company's needs and possibilities can be a retention force for employees for years to come. For this, of course, employees also need to know precisely what criteria their performance is evaluated by, and what they have to meet in order to advance in their careers.

So from the point of view of increasing employee satisfaction, it's worth sitting down with every employee once a year and talking through the career plan.

5. Support individual development

Linked to the career plan, employees' satisfaction is also positively influenced by being given the opportunity to develop. By being able to take part in courses and training that are not only necessary for their work but where the topic also interests them for their own personal development.
According to a survey with 1,000 participants, 82% of respondents said they would probably look for a new job if they saw that there was no longer any opportunity to grow at their current place. So to avoid this, it's worth paying attention to employee training. These can be external training courses, or even internal ones, which you can also make available as microlearning for interested employees.

6. Empower them with decision-making authority / don't micromanage

There are few things worse than an employee being micromanaged. It's terribly annoying and creates the impression that the leader/company doesn't trust the employee. And who would be happy or satisfied under such circumstances?

To increase employee satisfaction, empower your colleagues with decision-making authority. Let the employee decide on their own what size of Allen key they need, or how many drops of paint are needed to mix the right colour.

Trust your employees' expertise. They'll almost certainly handle the everyday routine tasks well even if you don't keep telling them what to do and when.

7. Ensuring work-life balance

It's increasingly important to employees to work somewhere alongside which they can also live a balanced private life. For the ever-younger workforce, regardless of whether they do office or manual work, the following are less and less acceptable:

• constant overtime,
• the feeling of being obliged to be reachable even after working hours,
• having to take a day off even to handle minor personal matters, and so on.

According to one survey, more than 1 in 4 employees looks for a new job because they don't feel their employer supports a balanced work-life balance. And according to research, the cost of replacing an employee is roughly 21% of the annual salary of the employee to be replaced.

Be more flexible and support work-life balance, since this isn't only important for increasing employee satisfaction but also contributes to preserving the employee's mental well-being. What's more, through it burnout can be reduced, a healthier physical condition can be maintained, and it even positively influences performance.

8. Establish transparent communication

Share important company news with colleagues, and from time to time ask them for feedback too. This is important not merely to maintain two-way information flow for the sake of better performance, but is also essential for increasing employee satisfaction. According to one study, 80% of employees experience stress because of ineffective company communication, and this, needless to say, leads to dissatisfaction.

But what's even more shocking is that a full 17% of employees would recommend dismissing the company's leader because of the way they communicate with employees. This too shows how important it is for management to communicate with employees regularly, empathetically, transparently and effectively.

Of course, an essential precondition for transparent and effective communication is that you reach every employee. So it's important to choose the right communication channel through which you can get in touch with employees regardless of whether they

• have company devices and an email address,
• work in an office or a factory, or perhaps at a site,
• are on the road or work sitting in front of a machine,
• are on active or inactive status (e.g. parental leave),
• how skilled they are at handling technical-digital tools.

The CHEQ internal company communication channel makes it possible for your message to reach every one of your colleagues. If you'd like to find out how it works, request our FREE demo.