Five Tips to Improve Employee Job Satisfaction
Whether or not an employee is satisfied with their job isn’t always up to the employer. Sure, most common methods like promoting and giving one a raise are the most common excuse, however, they don’t have 100 percent efficiency either. This is even in a scenario where you can promote and give raise indefinitely, which is never the case. You see, there are other ways in which you can improve the overall employee job satisfaction, which will result in a greater employee retention and a boost in productivity. Here are several tips that just might work. Needless to say, when it comes to the topic of job satisfaction, it’s your HR department that’s supposed to carry the most weight.
1. Leave some room for promotion
A lot of fresh entrepreneurs believe that their employer might start leaving if they don’t start promoting them quick enough, however, by promoting one too quickly, you’re raising their expectations. After all, if they’ve gotten their first promotion after three months, three months later, they might feel like they’ve deserved another one. In other words, if misused, a promotion can definitely be a bad thing.
The sense of accomplishment is another reason why this is a bad idea. If your staff feel like they’ve been promoted without actually deserving it or, even worse, if they see that the rest of the staff is getting the same treatment, this simply won’t feel special. Moreover, you’ll show them that time and effort invested don’t really matter and that they just have to stick with you long enough.
This is why it’s important that you understand just how crucial it is to keep some room for promotion as a leverage. Naturally, not promoting someone who’s earned it can make them leave your employ, and rightfully so. In other words, the key to keeping job satisfaction high, at least in this regard, is to walk a thin line between being too eager to promote or not promoting at all. Therefore, you should rely on the assessments made by your HR team but first, you have to bring them on board with this policy.
2. Make your employees a priority
The next thing you need to understand is the fact that your team is the most important thing for your brand. Sure, some may argue that multi-billion dollar enterprises don’t follow the same logic, yet, this is only because they’re at risk of losing a small portion of your team at any given time. On the other hand, if you’re a startup or a small business with 10 employees and 2 of them leave, this means that you were abandoned by the 20 per cent of your entire workforce.
In other words, employees come before clients, before products and before profit. Needless to say, it’s also important that they know this. Ironically, by doing this, you’ll improve your staff loyalty, which will reflect on your client base, your productivity and, therefore, your profit. The first step in achieving this is, once again ironically, opposite to what you’ve been told all your life – no, customers aren’t always right. Sometimes, you just have to stand up for what’s right, stand up for your team and let them know that you’ve got their back.
Another way to show your team that they are a top priority is to invest in their safety, as well as in the overall safety of your premises. Namely, if you’re someone who pushes accidents under the rug, ignores clear hazards and tries to cheat their employees out of their compensation, it’s clear that you won’t be able to get some loyalty from them. Nor will you deserve it.
On the other hand, if you’re doing all you can to properly label things, get adequate safety gear and even talk to local protective services, things will suddenly start looking up. It’s also important to stress out just how important it is to work with local services, due to the fact that most of these emergencies are location-based. So, if you run an NSW-based business, then, it’s your top priority to connect with reliable Sydney Rescue consultants in order to cover your company on this front.
3. Show that you notice their work
The next thing you need to understand is just how important it is for your employees to know that their work has been noticed. You see, millennial employees often complain about not making a difference. Unfortunately, they’re often correct, seeing as how they expect to make a noticeable difference at a new company after working there for just several months. Absurdly enough, some of them will become genuinely disappointed in the face of their inability to do so. To avoid allowing this from ever becoming a problem, you need to show genuine interest in the work done by your employees and show them that, no matter what, you, as their employer, really care.
4. Respond to their feedback
Unless you’re running an incredibly authoritarian office, where your employees are afraid to even look in your general directions, you’ll frequently hear complaints and suggestions from your employees. Try to respond to some of it, either by fixing an issue or by giving them a thorough explanation of why things are the way they are (if it’s a systemic problem that you can’t, won’t or can’t afford to fix). Similarly, to what we’ve discussed in the previous section, it’s not that much about fixing the problem as it is about them being heard by the management.
5. Take their personal problems seriously
Even the most productive employee can undergo a rough patch (divorce, a death of a loved one or a similar personal issue) that will render them useless in the workplace for a prolonged period of time. Giving them some time to address this issue is something that will benefit you both in the long run and strengthen the bond between the employee and the employee. This is why you should make sure your HR representatives always keep track of this.
In conclusion
With these several simple tricks under your belt, you’ll be able not just to boost productivity and prevent people from leaving you but also make your office into a much more pleasant environment. With the help of an efficient HR department, this shouldn’t be that big of a problem.