Employee Satisfaction Surveys: How Do They Increase Employee Engagement?
Publié le 1 November 2021
With the rapid pace of change taking place in many different industries and sectors, organizations should consider using employee satisfaction surveys and asking how do they increase employee engagement?
It’s often been said by business leaders and management consultants that “a happy employee is a productive employee”.
This means that employees need to be happy and engaged in their company to reach their full potential.
Currently, it is still true that employees who are satisfied with their work and engaged in their role are happier and more productive, but almost everything else about the workplace is different than it was just a few short years ago. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, much about the daily nature of work has changed for existing employees. With remote and hybrid working arrangements becoming commonplace in many different industries, it is more important than ever to prioritize high levels of employee engagement.
One way that organizations can measure engagement in the workplace is through conducting employee engagement surveys. With a few simple questions, employers can learn a lot about the feelings, needs, and wants of their employees. By prioritizing high levels of employee engagement and conducting employee engagement surveys, it is possible to create better and strong workplaces that are primed for success into the future.
Benefits of Employee Engagement
As we all know, the greatest asset of a company is its employees.
But did you know that only 15% of the employees feel engaged in their workspace?
It’s very crucial to ensure that employees feel a strong connection towards their workplace, as this will help employees stay on a strong career path, and allow business to stay on a path to continued to success into the future.
An employee’s relationship with their workplace, managers, and colleagues depends on a multitude of factors, which all need to be taken into account when considering ways to improve employee engagement. Despite this challenge, there are significant reasons that employers should do everything possible to increase employee engagement.
Benefits of Increased Employee Engagement
1. Higher employee retention
There can be multiple reasons for an employee leaving their current workspace, such as unchallenging work, lack of appreciation, lack of growth opportunities, stressful work culture, and more. These situations are unavoidable at times, and studies have shown that employee retention is one of the biggest challenges employers face today.
Don’t let the employee feel underutilized; in fact, encourage them to become a leader that brings passion to the organization. When employees feel appreciated and recognized for their work, it leads to increased levels of employee engagement. This contributes to creating a supportive culture for all the employees and will make it easier to retain the best employees.
2. A boost in productivity
If an employee feels engaged with their work, they will be far more likely to finish their projects in time.
It’s as simple as that!
In the age of remote working, organizations are practicing various ways to boost employee productivity like flexible working arrangements, time-tracking applications, and different management techniques. It’s time to start looking at what’s exactly in front of you: employee engagement.
Did you know that studies have found that engaged employees are 17% more productive compared to the others?
Employees work with more determination and effort when they feel a strong connection with the organization. It’s about time for company leaders to start focusing on the level of employee engagement rather than just pushing employees to meet deadlines. Because if your employees are engaged, they will have a better and enthusiastic approach, and meeting deadlines will be a cakewalk for them.
3. Lower absenteeism
When employees don’t feel connected or engaged with the organization, they are more likely to miss work without any second thoughts. This habit of regular absenteeism can project a long-term issue for the organization, and there is no easy way out of it except engaging the employee.
As per a Gallup Workplace report, businesses with engaged employees have lower employee absenteeism rates by up to 41%.
So, start recognizing talent in your organization and appreciate them. Allow all your employees to collaborate and take the steps they need to have an appropriate work-life balance.
An occasional day off can be a sign of a healthy work-life balance, but factors such as employee disengagement, burnout, and low morale, can lead to chronic absenteeism. Even in the age of remote working or otherwise, discard promoting a ‘burnout’ culture, give your employees some free time, recognize their skills, encourage collaboration and provide them with a platform to present themselves.
4. Quality of work
Engaged employees are highly motivated and tend to give their best when working on a task. This means that these employees tend to produce work with lesser quality defects than those who aren’t engaged.
Engaged employees enjoy their job!
From this, it is clear that they are more efficient with their work, constantly collaborate with teams, learn from their superiors, and set new benchmarks for others in the organization. An employee who is engaged in their tasks and responsibilities is far more likely to put forth their best effort. Engaged employees can encourage others to do the same and collaboratively uplift the work quality of the team as well as the company.
5. Better customer service
The service that your customers receive is directly proportional to an employee’s happiness at their workplace. If an employee is dissatisfied and unhappy, they likely won’t deliver as excellent customer service as a satisfied employee.
The critical ingredient of outstanding customer service is an engaged employee. Any engaged employee feels a sense of ownership of their work outcomes, which is why they are self-motivated, go the extra mile to deliver results, and work hard each day to provide the best service for their clients.
Keeping in mind that outstanding customer service is the cornerstone of any organization’s success, by making efforts to boost employee engagement it is more likely to produce better results for the company and the employees themselves.
6. Rise in profits
Businesses usually look for multiple places to invest in to expand their business. It’s only a matter of time that they realize their employees are the best place to invest. With an engaged employee as part of the team, a company can quickly expect increased productivity, a boost in sales, and exemplary customer service, all leading to rising profits.
The numbers back this up, as studies have found that companies with the highest levels of employee engagement were 22% more profitable and 21% more productive than those with low levels of engagement.
By investing in employee engagement, a company can easily discard the inefficiency and rapidly climb the success ladder.
Employee Satisfaction Surveys – How Do They Increase Employee Engagement?
The job satisfaction of each employee affects the organization at some or the other level. So, if the employee satisfaction level is high, it’s excellent news for the company. If not, the company needs to know the reason behind it and develop initiatives to improve it.
To begin with, there needs to be a way to know if employees are happy or not. The best way to determine this is by directly asking the employees.
Employee satisfaction surveys can help you with that!
They will help you understand where an employee stands on the job satisfaction scale and help gauge employee morale at the same time. With a survey’s help, you can easily assess if the employee is satisfied with the roles and responsibilities, workspace environment, growth path in the company, and other important aspects. This level of information can help the management proactively look at the issues, make a judgment, and take corrective measures.
Without considering a survey, your company could potentially face these consequences:
- Employees start disliking their job leading to lowered productivity
- Negative behavior towards the customers
- Reduced chances to attract new talents
- An overall decrease in employee morale
- People bad-mouthing around the company’s work culture
Once you decide to avoid these consequences and conduct regular employee surveys, it’s best to allow responders to remain anonymous. Employees are usually more comfortable stating what they truly feel when they feel protected.
Now that we have known the importance of an employee satisfaction survey, it’s time to take a step further and look at what kind of questions you can ask your employees.
Want to learn more about how to you can improve employee engagement? Discover the 5 types of questions to ask in an employee satisfaction survey.
