How to Boost Employee Satisfaction in 2022

For Valentine’s Day, we’ve been thinking about how we can make employees fall in love with their work. What it is that’s driving employee satisfaction. What employers should be doing to create a passionate, engaged, and happy work force. We’ve covered it in the past, but employee satisfaction in 2022 won’t be the same as in 2021, or in 2020, so we thought it was time for a refresh. A relook at the current trends, and what employees are seeking out in employers across industries.

Why is employee satisfaction important?

Employee satisfaction has a direct correlation with almost every other key metric employers care about when it comes to workers. It’s no surprise that satisfied employees lead to higher engagement, higher retention, better recruitment, and less burn out. In short, fixing low employee satisfaction is a money maker and a win-win situation.

Happy employees are much more likely to take pride in their work leading to higher quality output. They will also often feel a strong sense of loyalty to the company, which not only improves retention but the company image as well.

What should companies be doing in 2022?

1. Provide employees with growth opportunities

Employees don’t want to feel stuck where they are, and if you can’t provide them a feeling of growth, then they’ll move onto an employer who does.

Providing growth doesn’t just mean having positions ready for people to move into. It’s about creating a clear path which employees can follow to get where they want. Let employees know early on with the company where they can go from their position, and how they can get there. Outlining the requirements necessary firstly helps employees stay motivated in their work through clear objectives. Secondly, it helps employees picture their life at the company, knowing they can go where they need to, providing a sense of satisfaction. Thirdly, it will ultimately become a major driver for loyalty and improve company-wide retention.

2. Promote social connection

Promoting social connection in the workplace is key to any good company. Not only does it make work more interesting and meaningful, but it also impacts culture and cooperation. Having workers that get along is a major step in increasing productivity, two heads is better than one they say.

A company that does this well is Zoom, which we covered in our recent company culture insight. Here’s some tips we talked about on how Zoom boosts company social connections:

• New team members receive dedicated mentors to teach them about Zooms culture and vision
• There are all-hands quarterly meetings in every office
• Their volunteering group ‘Happy Crew’ drives events, programs, and finds creative ways to recognise co-workers

3. Allow for a flexible work schedule

With working from home continuing on even after offices reopen, it’s clear that employees love embracing more flexible options. A 2018 survey found that 80% of workers would choose a job that offers a flexible schedule over those that did not. 30% of respondents said that they value flexible work over additional vacation time. The evidence is there, employees are big on flexibility.

Why? Flexibility allows employees to find a better balance between their work and personal lives. It is particularly beneficial to employees with family commitments, who may be busy during regular working hours. It also provides all employees with a sense of autonomy which helps them feel more in control of their work and lifestyle.

4. Encourage creativity

Creativity is the key to innovation in any industry, so inspire it in your employees. Whether its encouraging new solutions, ways of doing things, or creative office activities, let your employees get creative.

A creative environment around the office helps encourage new solutions to problems and keep a business relevant. Allowing employees to use their imagination and strategic thinking skills actively is going to boost their engagement and satisfaction. It helps to avoid the repetition of day-in day-out work habits which too often leads to early burn out.

In industries where it might be hard to boost creativity naturally, there are activities that can be implemented to help. We’ve put a couple of our favourite below.

• Organise an art or music class for employees, ‘paint and sips’ are also popular, or pottery classes.
• Host a contest. This is a great seasonal one for Christmas, Halloween, or Easter. Get creative with costume contests or art projects. This can also be a more functional one, e.g., asking employees for their best sales idea or most unique blog topic.
• Heard of serious play? It’s the seriously interesting campaign by Lego to get businessmen and women to start building. Lego serious play encourages teams to get together, solve problems, and build.

5. Build a positive work environment

No matter how many benefits or fun activities you plan, if the work environment is bad it’ll spoil the mood.

A positive work environment means having employees that actively support each other. It means having a transparent culture where people are treated equally. Above all, its an environment that is supportive, helpful, and kind. A big part of building this environment comes from establishing company values, building trust, and encouraging innovation and community. If you’re thinking about how you can pull all of that off, we suggest checking out our article here. Which has all the tips and tricks from major players like Google, Zoom, and HubSpot.

How do I know if my employees are satisfied?

Employee satisfaction can be a tricky thing to gage around the office. You can start to get an idea by looking at feedback boxes or HR complaints, but both will offer biased perspectives. If you want to get an idea overall on how all employees are doing, a survey can be used. A CiVS survey can measure employee satisfaction with ease. Upon survey completion, a detailed easy-to-read report follows. This report contains all the insights gained from the survey, without the cluttered data. This helps management create effective strategies quickly.

If you are interested in conducting an employee satisfaction survey at your work, you can contact CiVS at (08) 6314 0580 or info@civs.com.au