As you probably already know, your employees makeup pretty much your entire business. Without them and their smart brains, working hard each and every day you wouldn’t be in the position you are today. Since they work hard for you I’m sure you would want to work hard for them as well, and ensure they are enjoying their jobs. Of course, everyone has their bad days in the office, the occasional stressful day where nothing is going your way. Laptop is freezing, printer is jammed and your lunch that you thought was going to be amazing, just didn’t hit the spot. Unfortunately, if employees are increasingly not enjoying their daily work, or satisfied with what they are doing their overall workplace productivity is going to take an inevitable blow.
This is where you come in, as their manager and attempt to implement some new ways that may help your employees grow to love their job and work hard for the career that they do deserve. If you focus your time on making their time in your office productive and somewhat enjoyable, you will be the one to eventually reap in the benefits.
What Employee job satisfaction will increase:
- Self-motivation
- Business Productivity
- Quality of Employees work
- Bottom Line Profits
What Employee job satisfaction will decrease:
- Employee turnover
- Absenteeism
- Stress Levels
- Recruitment costs
As you can tell from the above list, there is absolutely no negatives of implementing new ways to increase your employees job satisfaction. We know that each and every business is different. So below we will be giving you some info that you may be able to use, in conjunction with your own teams feedback, on what might work well to increase job satisfaction at your business.
Open good channels of communication
It’s so important, in all areas of your life that you have clear communication skills with people around you, this is even more important at a workplace. If you and your employees aren’t communicating things across effectively, information will not be clear and both you and your employees put yourself at risk of added stress or even frustration. Unclear communication can create conflict in the workplace. Previous studies have showed that “If there are too many conflicts, it is bound to affect staff motivation and relationships, which in turn will affect their job satisfaction”. Conflict has been recognised as a major factor in decreasing an employee’s job satisfaction. Regular communication is encouraged, not just a quick chat at your yearly performance review meeting (please see “How To Effectively Conduct Your Employee Performance Reviews” blog post for more on this topic) but daily – if possible casual chats, just so you both are on the same page. This will also prevent the need for micro managing to take place, as through these regular chats you can grow and trust that they will know what they need to achieve for today.
It should be a top priority for any manager to ensure that the workplace culture allows open and honest communication, which in turn will prevent further frustration and conflicts arising. Are your employees scared to speak to you? If you answered yes, you need to start reconsidering the communication channels you have with your employees.
Place Realistic Expectations on Your Employees
In all businesses all employees are expected to work to a certain standard. Please do not be the manager who expects their staff to make miracles, like turning water into wine – cause this just won’t happen. A study found that most managers do know the stress that are putting their staff under. “Specifically, 54% of the executives surveyed acknowledged that their staff is stressed, and 55 % have noticed that employee anxiety has risen”. These findings are ones that are common among many businesses. Realistic expectations, is knowing what they can and can’t achieve within a day. If you are putting impossible expectations on them to achieve each day, it will just increase their stress as well as disrupt their own personal work life balance. They will begin to do more work from home, in hopes to complete all the tasks you’ve assigned them. Therefore, resulting in higher levels of stress, which can be damaging to their overall mental health. Please remember that your employees do have their own lives outside of work, and if good WorkLife balance is achieved it’ll be more beneficial for both you and your employees.
Recognize your Employees Hard Work
This should just be a no brainer! You always need to acknowledge your employees performance specifically if they are performing amazingly! This could be as simple as a quick “Great work” even if it’s just a text message with a smiley face emoji, it still counts. As a manager you would be discussing their performance if they weren’t performing to the expected, so you should be doing the same if they are performing above this standard. As we spoke about above, communication in conjunction with recognising their hard work are great ways to help increase their overall job satisfaction. It’s cheap and easy, and your employees will love you for it. A good thing to remember as stated by BusinessTeacher.org. is that “Employees look for positive reinforcement, both verbal and nonverbal, and if they do not receive it, they often will become disappointed with their position”.
Create An Enjoyable Work Environment and Culture
This one all starts with you! If you bring a positive and happy attitude to work every day, it can be contagious. Encourage positive conversations and work relationships between employees. Do fun activity’s together. For example here at HussetHR we try and complete the daily newspaper quiz whilst at lunch. This helps take our mind off work for just a minute, and gives us something to laugh about all together… especially when we can’t figure out an answer. Building a strong team environment is vital at any organisation, so make these activities enjoyable. Encourage the incorporation of mindfulness and meditation. Just taking a minute to relax breath and de stress may help your employees be less anxious or agitated at the workplace.
Encourage Employee growth and development
Training and growth in a business can be a great motivator for all employees. Knowing that there is possibility of acquiring the skills to perform different tasks, or even get a promotion can help employees recognise that there is lots of opportunities for them to grow within the workplace. If you invest in your employees growth, they will feel valued and become ambassadors for your business. Through training and development your staff will also acquire an improved skill base that will be shown in their improved overall performance. All managers should heavily encourage their employees to complete supplied training at the organisation. A study done by Burke, 1995 found that “Staff perceiving greater value in formal training courses are relatively more satisfied with their jobs, which leads to them feeling better about their organisation”.
The above points are just a few ways in which you can promote job satisfaction in your workplace. You can also find your own ways in which will promote a happier overall work environment. We encourage speaking to your employees and finding things that they may want to implement into their WorkLife. Happier employees make for a more happier work Environment! Make a change. Make it fun.