Why is staff satisfaction so important right now?

The Great Res­ig­na­tion is under­way, and many organ­i­sa­tions will already be feel­ing its effects. Now that employ­ees are hold­ing more pow­er due to a need for tal­ent, the con­ver­sa­tion has turned to how organ­i­sa­tions can attract and retain tal­ent­ed people.

We believe the answer is this: by cre­at­ing a work cul­ture that focuss­es on employ­ee sat­is­fac­tion, by boost­ing engage­ment and well-being, organ­i­sa­tions will put them­selves in the best posi­tion pos­si­ble to keep their cur­rent staff, and bring in new talent. 

Brooks Holtom con­duct­ed a study with 240 employ­ees of a retail bank in cen­tral Unit­ed States annu­al­ly for three years. The results of this study showed that more sat­is­fied and engaged employ­ees were less like­ly to leave, with this rela­tion­ship strength­en­ing over time. This study shows us there is a pos­i­tive cor­re­la­tion between sat­is­fac­tion and low resignations. 

So whilst recent events have pushed employ­ee sat­is­fac­tion into the spot­light, it begs the ques­tion, why weren’t employ­ers already doing all they could to opti­mise employ­ee satisfaction?

Maybe before ​‘The Great Res­ig­na­tion’ staff would have been less like­ly to leave their jobs even if they were unhap­py, due to fear of insta­bil­i­ty or lack of moti­va­tion, but reten­tion is not the only rea­son to focus on staff happiness. 

By increas­ing staff sat­is­fac­tion organ­i­sa­tions can also increase pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and cut down on lost hours due to sick leave from stress. A hap­py and well looked after employ­ee is much more like­ly to give their role 100%, so when it comes down to it, employ­ee sat­is­fac­tion is an investment. 

Increas­ing employ­ee sat­is­fac­tion / hap­pi­ness comes down to a cou­ple of fac­tors, boost­ing engage­ment with their job and organ­i­sa­tion, and improv­ing their well-being. This might sounds sim­ple but these two things encom­pass a lot, such as: 

• Do they feel excit­ed about their role?
• Do they feel proud to work for the organisation?
• Do they have strong rela­tion­ships with their man­ag­er and co-workers?
• Do they see a future with the organisation?
• Does their role cause them too much stress?
• Do they get enjoy­ment from their role?
• Do they have a good work-life balance?
• Do they feel secure in their job?
• Do they feel seen and appreciated?

So how do you improve on these engage­ment and well-being fac­tors in order to increase employ­ee sat­is­fac­tion? We believe many of these can be improved by using great con­tin­u­ous per­for­mance management. 

This should include reg­u­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion between man­agers and staff, set­ting short term agile goals, set­ting per­son­al devel­op­ment goals, enabling feed­back between co-work­ers and track­ing engage­ment across the organisation.

All of these things can strength­en the employee’s rela­tion­ship with col­leagues and the organ­i­sa­tion itself. Good com­mu­ni­ca­tion with man­agers allows the employ­ee to feel heard, and for issues to be spot­ted and dealt with together. 

Set­ting short­er term goals helps reduce burn out with year­long objec­tives, and keep the employ­ee inter­est­ed in engaged with their role. 

Feed­back between co-work­ers allows for all employ­ees to receive praise for a job well done, and get advice on how to improve on cer­tain aspects of their role mov­ing forward. 

And track­ing engage­ment means HR and lead­ers can see if engage­ment is dip­ping, either across the board or just in one depart­ment, mean­ing they can take steps to try to find and solve what is caus­ing this. 

In con­clu­sion, staff sat­is­fac­tion and well-being should always be at the top of your pri­or­i­ty list. Employ­ees are an organisation’s most impor­tant asset, an organ­i­sa­tion can’t run with­out peo­ple, and with an enthu­si­as­tic, hap­py team, an organ­i­sa­tion can go from good, to great. 

To find out how Clear Review can help to improve you employ­ee sat­is­fac­tion book a demo or speak to a mem­ber of our team: +44 (0)20 3637 4489