To achieve competitive advantage, high employee satisfaction is a must. Not only are satisfied employees more productive but this also delivers higher customer satisfaction up. But how do you make sure employees are satisfied? And more importantly, how do employees stay happy? This article describes key tips for achieving employee satisfaction.
1. Value employees
It may sound a little cliché but satisfaction starts with expressing appreciation to employees. Appreciate and reward (extra) effort. Showing appreciation to employees is important for maintaining motivation and satisfaction. When employees put in extra effort, it is important that this effort is recognised and acknowledged.
2. Motivate mutual bonding
Healthy relationships between employees and colleagues are essential for an employee. This creates a stronger sense of shared responsibility for the department. To achieve this, it makes sense to schedule structural group activities such as get-togethers, dinners, celebrating birthdays and weekends away.
3. Support a healthy work-life balance
Challenge employees sufficiently but do not make sure they are completely left to their own devices. Offer opportunities to critically examine flexible work arrangements, working from home and stress management.
4. Appoint the right leaders
Ensure that employees are paired with suitable managers. For example, when there are many new employees, they should, for both development and satisfaction, be able to make mistakes. Assigning a leader who does not allow this will not easily motivate employees so friction will quickly arise between them.
5. Make work content flexible
Offer scope to make work more interesting/complex so that employees remain sufficiently challenged. Challenging work has been shown to contribute to job satisfaction. It is important to take employees' work-life balance into account (point 3.).
6. Give an attractive salary
Employees' basic salary should be a logical consequence of the work they do. Also ensure sufficient perspective by building up the salary in scales.
7. Give job security
Let job security depend as much as possible on the employee's performance. This supports the perception of job security and thus psychological security.
8. Support development
Offer employees sufficient space to develop. This can be both on-the-job and off-the-job with coaching and training opportunities. This ensures future prospects within the organisation, increasing overall satisfaction.
9. Lead by example
When specific behaviours are required of employees, it is important that management applies these behaviours themselves. This creates more support and gives employees room to learn from their examples. "Practice what you preach" is the most important motto here.
10. Employer branding
Employees want to be proud to tell family and friends that they work for their organisation. Therefore, it is important that the employer is known as a "good employer" where employees enjoy themselves. The ultimate goal is for all (former) employees to be ambassadors of the organisation.
As shown above, employee satisfaction is complex and not achievable overnight. Confidence will only increase when areas for improvement are heard and translated into specific actions. If this is done successfully, it leads not only to higher satisfaction but also to competitive advantage.
