What Are the Objectives of Employee Satisfaction?

Employee satisfaction is a top priority for most businesses with good reason. Aside from being nicer to be around, happy and fulfilled workers tend to be more motivated and productive than staff members who feel frustrated, sidelined or dissatisfied. The main objective of improving employee satisfaction is to have great workers who stay long-term, reducing turnover and ultimately helping your business to grow. So, whether you’re considering introducing financial incentives such as bonuses or thinking of buying a pool table for the office, investing in employee satisfaction should help you to achieve better results.

Tip

Keep your employees happy and satisfied by making them feel that they are valued, let them know their work has impact and show them the progress resulting from their work.

The most satisfied employees will have a sense of personal investment in the business they work for. They’ll be motivated by more than just a paycheck, which means they will always be striving for the best possible results. They’re invested in your business because you have invested in them. They are also less likely to need time off due to stress or to call in sick because they’re just plain miserable at work. All this means better outcomes – and, most likely, profits – for you. Years of research have shown that that happy employees can improve sales productivity by 37 percent, productivity by 31 percent and accuracy by 19 percent.

Advertising for, interviewing and sorting out all the paperwork for new employees is both expensive and time-consuming. Not to mention the training involved to get new workers up to speed, and the risk that the new hire might not work out. So anything that keeps employees from seeking out other jobs is a plus. That also means a workplace staffed with more experienced, capable and confident employees, especially if part of your employee satisfaction strategy is to offer training courses and internal promotion opportunities.

In the worst cases of employee dissatisfaction, there’s a high risk that miserable employees could be moaning to friends and anyone who’ll listen outside of work. And that could create an impression, rightly or wrongly, that your company isn’t a great place to work. Even one disgruntled worker could be enough to damage your brand. On the flipside, staff who have only nice things to say about the place they work will effectively become brand ambassadors for your business. If people are spreading the word about how much they love the free Friday breakfasts or how great it is that their boss invests in training and development, that can only be a positive thing for your brand and business. Between 1998 to 2005, the stock price of "Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work" for rose by 14 percent compared to just a 6 percent increase for the general market.

Let’s face it – no one wants to be around colleagues or staff who mumble and grumble around the water cooler all day long. Smiley, happy people are just much more pleasant to be around. And a negative attitude can quickly spread, potentially creating a toxic environment in the workplace. Those who feel happy and motivated in their work will be more likely to gel well with colleagues and, therefore, work better as a team – without office politics and complaints about who took the last of the coffee getting in the way.