How Can Employers Increase Employee Satisfaction?

It’s the time of year to rank your satisfaction at work through a series of questions. Many of the questions cover broad topics, and you find yourself ranking many as five or under — not very satisfied overall. But what if your employer were to break down the questions further and administer the employee satisfaction survey more often? Experts suggest this could make a difference in satisfaction.???

By Helen Harris

You’re unhappy with the way things are going at work. Specifically, you don’t feel your salary is up to standard with the quality of projects you are delivering and the hours you’ve put in over the years. There is little flexibility to work from home or embrace a hybrid work schedule, which could benefit several team members.?

In general, you sense morale in the office is low when it comes to the outlook for the next few years. But you still love the work you do, and you want to give your feedback to make the workplace better. That’s why you’re looking forward to your company’s bi-annual employee satisfaction survey.?

The employee satisfaction survey, although it consists of just a few questions, is vital to an organization’s well-being.?

Nailted points out that despite having a solid business plan, strategic market positioning or even the best products, a large part of a business’s success relies on how successful it is with people and the culture it has created.?

The source further notes that companies with highly engaged employees are reported to have a 50% higher market premium than those who do not.?

For example, powerhouse companies such as Google and Salesforce not only have impressive revenue but an enviable company culture and happy employees.

This is why employee satisfaction is key to any business’s success and why employers should strive to meet employee needs, improve culture and anticipate how the workplace can change in stride with an ever-changing world.??

What Is an Employee Satisfaction Survey?

According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), an employee opinion and satisfaction survey measures employee views, attitudes and perceptions of their organization.?

To foster an environment where employees are not harboring negative feedback during high-stress periods and are willing to come forward with all their ideas, SHRM suggests organizations survey employees regularly. Ideally, this is at least done yearly.?

Melanie Mitchell-Wexler, career coach and LinkedIn strategist, echoes the sentiment that employers should measure employee satisfaction at a bare minimum yearly but ideally every six months.

“If employers really want to hear what employees have to say — if they really want to listen and take action — it normally takes about three to six months to change something or to start changing culture,” said Janine Wiggins, federal resume writer, certified federal career coach and job search trainer. “So, if you’re waiting until the results of that once-a-year employee satisfaction survey, if you have a group of disgruntled employees or another issue, it could be too late.”?

SHRM also suggests that companies find it useful to form a multilevel, cross-functional team to consider the key objectives for conducting a survey before designing it. The team designing the survey should consider some of the following questions:?

• What should be measured? Why??
• Who will write the questions?
• When and how often will a survey be administered??
• How will results be communicated??
• Who will implement the change once survey results are in?
• Are there questions from previous surveys that need to be rewritten or any that should not be included again??

Another factor to consider is using a third-party to administer and collect the survey responses.?

“In order to prevent any type of bias, employees should consider using a third party, if possible,” said Brianna Watts, sourcer at Uber and resume writer. “That could be human resources, or a third-party company to ensure that there isn't any implicit bias in the questions and that they are capturing the right data.”?

Understanding the Employer Satisfaction Index

Once an employer has determined what questions to include in the satisfaction survey, there is also another aspect to consider: How will the results/answers be measured??

This is where the Employer Satisfaction Index (ESI) comes into play.?

Netigate explains that the ESI centers around three questions. These questions are:?

1. How satisfied are you with your current workplace?

2. How well does your current workplace meet your expectations?

3. How close is your current workplace to the ideal one?

Employees answer each question on a scale of one to 10 (one being the worst, 10 being the best). To get the ESI value from a survey, an employer would then follow this formula: ESI= [((question mean value ÷ 3) – 1) ÷9]*100.?

An ESI score can vary from 0 to 100, and the higher the number indicates more satisfied employees.?

Netigate also mentions that because the ESI score is built around just those three questions, employers will often include other questions to gain more understanding of the answers employees submit.?

“Often the ESI is part of a larger employee survey,” said the Netigate Team. “By including the three questions in a bigger survey, it is easy to break down the results afterward and calculate the ESI value.”

Survey Questions To Best Gauge Employee Satisfaction?

Mitchell-Wexler adds to SHRM’s list, stating that when employers create survey questions, the topics should be as detailed as possible.??

For example, instead of asking broad questions such as an employee’s satisfaction with salary or satisfaction with work-life balance, the workplace should try to dig deeper into these categories for more accurate feedback.?

“In regard to salary satisfaction, an employer could instead ask something to the effect of if their salary is competitive with what the market is offering or if it is meeting the demands of their personal life,” said Mitchell-Wexler.?

Wiggins states that the following are good questions to include:?

• Are we keeping up with the inflation rate??
• Are we providing you with a competitive rate?
• What can we do better as a company to help compensate for rising prices everywhere?

These questions are specific and essentially open the door to blunt responses from employees. However, Wiggins notes that if the workplace’s leadership is operating with a value-based management approach with its employees, there is usually less negative feedback in satisfaction surveys.????

“Value-based workplaces tend to have regular meetings with their employees, whether it's a group or individual, and also have an open-door policy,” said Wiggins “Employees in these environments feel comfortable speaking with their managers. And those managers feel comfortable speaking with their directors, the directors with the VP and so forth. There’s less opportunity for an employee to get disgruntled because the leaders are addressing the issue early on because of frequent check-ins and an open-door policy.”?

Ultimately, capturing positive employee satisfaction scores and responses falls back on workplace culture, a point which Watts stresses falls on leadership to ensure they are hiring the right people, and then giving those people the resources they need to be successful.?

“You’re going to get pushback, no matter what; no work culture is perfect,” said Watts. “But employers need to ask themselves if they are intentional about allowing employees to show up and be their best selves, ask employees how they can be most productive and what they need in order to show up to work to produce the best results. We need to be comfortable asking those types of questions at work.”

Top Takeaways?

How Can Employers Increase Employee Satisfaction?

• Employee satisfaction is key to any business’s success and why employers should strive to meet employee needs, improve culture and anticipate how the workplace can change in stride with an ever-changing world.??
• An employee opinion and satisfaction survey measures employee views, attitudes and perceptions of their organization.?
• The ESI score is based on three questions, and an ESI score can vary from 0 to 100 (the higher the number indicates more satisfied employees).
• When employers create survey questions, the topics should be as detailed as possible.??
• Ultimately, capturing positive employee satisfaction scores and responses falls back on workplace culture.