Why Job Satisfaction Matters

How engaged are your employees, and does engagement matter as long as they’re getting the job done?  

According to a Gallup poll completed in 2018, only 34% of employees report being “engaged” at work. While employee engagement is on the rise as a whole, it’s worth noting that the poll also found 53% of workers fell in the “not engaged” category.   

Employee engagement and job satisfaction go hand-in-hand, and you need to secure both if you want a genuinely productive workforce.  

Why Satisfied Employees Make Engaged Employees  

Employee satisfaction refers to how content an employee is with their job. There’s a lot of factors that go into satisfaction, including:  

  • Teamwork  
  • Flexibility  
  • Workload  
  • Compensation 
  • Resources  
  • Management  

It would help if you had a careful balance to keep employees satisfied.  

Where does engagement come in? Employees need high job satisfaction – or have their essential concerns covered – before engagement is even a question. Without job satisfaction, you can’t even begin to start concerning yourself with higher productivity.  

What Happens When Your Workforce isn’t Engaged?  

If your employees aren’t satisfied, they usually let you know. You have a high turnover rate and lose your best people to your competition. In other words, they leave.  

On the other hand, polls show that if your employees aren’t engaged, they’ll hang around. They clock in and out and collect their paychecks. They complete their minimum workload but won’t do much more.  

Disengaged employees are more dangerous to your company than unsatisfied employees because they don’t leave of their own volition. They limit growth, productivity, and innovation over the years, putting your business at a disadvantage.  

Are Your Employees Satisfied?  

Before you can address engagement, you need to make sure employees are satisfied.  

The simplest way is to put together an employee satisfaction survey, distribute it regularly, and take the data seriously.  

These surveys take the pulse of your workforce and go on to help you identify areas that contribute to engagement.  

Some of the questions you’ll ask include:  

  • Do you like the company culture?  
  • Would you recommend our company as a place to work?  
  • If you were going to quit tomorrow, what would be the reason?  
  • Does the company make you feel valued?  

Make you also allow these surveys to be distributed anonymously to get the most value from them and skip any complicated questions that seem like ‘gotchas.’ Finally, pick the most critical questions and use them. Don’t make the satisfaction survey into another tedious task.  

Satisfied Employees Make Engaged Employees  

If you want to grow your business and remain competitive, then the secret isn’t a high-dollar capital injection or a spate of good press. You need satisfied and engaged employees at the core of everything you do.  

Remember that job satisfaction starts at the top. If your managers aren’t satisfied, your team members won’t be either.  

At Energi Personnel, we understand why job satisfaction matters. We help employers find candidates who are a good fit for their culture as well as the role. Get in touch to learn more about how we find engaged employees for businesses like yours. 

 

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