Work fulfillment is characterized as the degree of satisfaction representatives feel with their work. This includes their satisfaction with team members and managers, their satisfaction with organizational policies, and how their work affects their personal lives.
We hear the term “job satisfaction” a lot, but do you know what exactly it means and how its absence could hurt your company’s productivity? Read our definitive 2020 guide to job satisfaction, its drivers, and its advantages to learn how your company can benefit from increased workplace satisfaction.
Employers are putting in a lot of effort to ensure that their employees are happy, making this an exciting time for workplaces. According to a survey conducted in 2019 by The Conference Board (U.S.) Opens a new window, job satisfaction is at its highest level in 20 years. Therefore, how does this affect your business? To begin, you must understand precisely what job satisfaction is and how to accurately measure it for 2020 and beyond.
Have you recently considered whether or not your position is right for you?
Do you actually understand what it means to be right?
Personal intuition and circumstances frequently play a role in determining whether or not your job is right for you, whether or not you are satisfied there, and why this is important. For certain individuals, the right work could involve procuring a specific compensation. Others may find that having a supportive team is the right job.
Within excess of 21,000 members in their review, scientists Dobrow, Ganzach, and Liu (2018) found that more than a 40-year length, individuals who remained in a similar association over the long run turned out to be less fulfilled, and individuals who moved to various associations over the long haul became more joyful.
What does it imply? Is it more important to stay with an organization or to leave? What would ensure a person’s continued happiness in an organization?
In addition, we will discuss the components of job satisfaction, real-world examples of it, and its connection to motivation in this article.
What is job satisfaction?
Work fulfillment, an unquantifiable measurement, is characterized as a positive close to home reaction you experience while taking care of your business or when you are available working. Job satisfaction surveys are now commonplace in the majority of workplaces, and leading organizations are attempting to measure this feeling.
Keep in mind that every employee’s level of job satisfaction is different. In similar working environment under similar circumstances, the elements that assist one worker with having a decent outlook on their occupation may not matter to another representative. Consequently, a multidimensional approach to employee satisfaction that encompasses the following aspects is essential:
- The difficult work environment pushes employees to new heights.
- A degree of ease (short commutes, access to the appropriate digital tools, and a variety of working hours).
- Regular praise from both the immediate management and the entire organization.
- Competitive pay that helps workers maintain a high standard of living.
- The commitment of profession movement in a state of harmony with workers’ self-awareness targets.
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
– Confucius
That quote has probably been said before, but it might still be relevant today. It prompts us to consider whether feelings of happiness, stress, and anxiety contribute significantly to job satisfaction.
Job satisfaction is defined in the aptly titled Job Satisfaction (Hoppock, 1935) as any combination of psychological, physiological, and environmental factors that lead a person to honestly state that they are satisfied with their job.
Job satisfaction has been referred to as a collection of favorable or unfavorable feelings and emotions with which employees view their work (Karatepe, Uludag, Menevis, Hadzimehmedagic, & Baddar, 2006), going back to this century.
Let’s first look at what causes those unfavorable feelings before we move on to positive feelings or proven factors that contribute to job satisfaction. A significant number of us have encountered despondency due to these elements and more eventually in our professions. Let’s examine what we can do to find contentment at work.
10 factors to improve job satisfaction
With lots of research and study towards satisfaction at work from various companies suggest that what factors goes into the companies which makes the work satisfying.
Here are the ten factors to improve job satisfaction at work:
- Communication
- Culture
- Security
- Leadership
- Opportunities
- Career development
- Working conditions
- Employee personality
- Pat and benefits
- Rewards and recognition
1. Communication
On a personal and professional level, satisfaction can be maintained through effective communication. Allowing employees to be honest, cooperative, trustworthy, and even confrontational when necessary is an example of this.
2. Culture
The values and direction that a company culture provides about topics like organizational goals and the right levels of interaction between employees are linked to job satisfaction.
3. Security
It should come as no surprise that once a workplace culture is established, feelings of safety and security can increase employee satisfaction. Security might emerge from realizing you work for a practical organization with long haul objectives, intimating sensations of having a place with that organization. A company’s honesty in communication and openness can help with this.
4. Leadership
Integrated with expanded inspiration for representatives, initiative, or impacting a gathering toward the accomplishment of a dream or put forth of objectives, can prompt work fulfillment by ensuring correspondence and guidance of errands is satisfactory and effortlessly comprehended.
Thus, when representatives feel that pioneers can direct them through errands, their inspiration and fulfillment increments. With initiative impacting position fulfillment, this connected article with administration exercises is a suggested perused.
5. Opportunities
When more challenging opportunities present themselves, employees may experience an increase in job satisfaction. Employees can get out of the rut of their jobs and participate in interesting and diverse projects as a result.
6. Career development
When employees are aware that an individualized plan is in place, they may experience an increase in job satisfaction. Past the proper idea of examinations, on the off chance that there is a way set up for development, this can urge representatives to remain more joyful for longer.
7. Working conditions
If a workplace is resilient and cooperative, job satisfaction can rise. This implies a spot with deference for different thoughts and sentiments, legit and useful criticism, tutoring potential open doors, and independence from badgering.
8. Employee personality
The majority of factors associated with job satisfaction may originate outside of the employees’ control (such as management leadership and communication from company leaders), but what about the employees themselves? Can they regulate their own levels of contentment?
These researchers discuss how an employee’s level of proactiveness at work can determine their level of job satisfaction. Is the worker proactive in seeking feedback from a manager? Does the worker go above and beyond to complete work for the company? Does the employee make an effort to adhere to the objectives set by the company, lead meetings, and inquire when unsure of how to complete a task?
If that’s the case, these workers can demonstrate greater job satisfaction. Positive job evaluations can result from proactive behavior in the workplace, which can then be passed on to the employee, resulting in their satisfaction.
9. Pat and benefits
Employees’ perceptions of adequate pay and benefits are also linked to organizational success and job satisfaction (Edwards, 2008).
While pay and advantages are not by any means the only explanation representatives find fulfillment in their working environments, research returning over 30 years (e.g., Gerhart, 1987) shows that compensation and advantages, essentially as per how representatives view themselves in their jobs, has positioned high on arrangements of occupation fulfillment factors.
10. Rewards and recognition
Employee job satisfaction indicates that promotional policies are clear and in line with their expectations, in addition to monetary gain and fair compensation.
This study’s key finding is that a person’s sense of fairness in how they are acknowledged for their accomplishments at work is correlated with job satisfaction, not just pay.
10 factors that determine your employee’s satisfaction levels
There is no one definition of job satisfaction, and the factors that influence it will vary depending on the environment in which you work. A happy worker in the manufacturing industry, for instance, doesn’t look the same as a happy software developer. However, every workplace geared toward employee well-being and satisfaction will share ten characteristics.
- Does your company care about its employees?
- Does the workplace have room for employees to engage in their hobbies?
- What is the average interval between promotions?
- Do employees feel respected by their peers?
- Is there a culture of two-way feedback?
- Where do you stand on the issue of work-life balance?
- How do employees rate their relationships with their reporting heads?
- Does your organization follow fair and inclusive policies?
- Can employees nurture their creative instincts in their jobs?
- Do employees feel secure about their role?
1. Does your company care about its employees?
Keep in mind that it is not sufficient to simply care; you must also communicate this care to employees on a regular basis via newsletters, rewards, informal recognition, paid incentives, and other means.
As part of their communication strategy, companies like Google and Starbucks, which have high levels of job satisfaction, also include employee happiness and satisfaction stories.
2. Does the workplace have room for employees to engage in their hobbies?
Despite the fact that the majority of us spend a significant portion of our week at work, we do not want to neglect our personal pursuits or hobbies.
Better job satisfaction can be achieved in an environment where employees have ample time to read, catch up on the news, or enjoy a meal, and such activities are not considered slacking off.
3. What is the average interval between promotions?
The ongoing business climate is speedy, and workers will change to greener fields in the event that advancements aren’t approaching.
The average employee tenure should be used as a good guideline for when employees are promoted. For instance, promotions ought to be scheduled at least every two years for employees who stay with your business for an average of five years and two months.
Cross-training programs should be offered to every employee so that they can explore new roles within the company if such transitions are not possible.
Most importantly, let your employees know about your company’s promotion policies so they know when and what to expect.
4. Do employees feel respected by their peers?
A working environment where representatives feel consistently scrutinized or under some sort of investigation is ready for disappointment. You can find out about their dissatisfaction by having one-on-one conversations with employees or by using anonymized data from employee satisfaction surveys to find out about it. From there, you can take the necessary steps to make their experience here better.
5. Is there a culture of two-way feedback?
For employees to know if they are on the right path, they need regular feedback—both positive and negative feedback.
Additionally, they want to voice their opinions to senior management, HR, and managers in order to direct the company’s future. Maintaining employee satisfaction necessitates this culture of two-way feedback. You must act on the feedback you receive in a double-bind.
6. Where do you stand on the issue of work-life balance?
It is necessary for businesses to make an effort to cultivate a high-performance culture free of toxic elements where well-being takes precedence over productivity. Positive balance between fun and serious activities is indispensable to this.
According to the 2019 work environment Bliss Report by UdemyOpens another window, balance between fun and serious activities adds importance to the gig for 37% of experts. Employees can be aided in achieving this goal in a number of ways, including paid time off, flexible working options, and mandatory work-from-home days.
7. How do employees rate their relationships with their reporting heads?
We’ve all heard the saying that employees quit their bosses, not their jobs. A Gallup poll found that 75% of voluntary attrition can be attributed to the behavior of immediate supervisors rather than the job itself. This is supported by studies.
Again, team-by-team targeted job satisfaction surveys can assist in determining the cause.
8. Does your organization follow fair and inclusive policies?
Variety and consideration in the work environment emphatically affect the business primary concern, while likewise working on an organization’s way of life and workplace. You can raise the company’s average level of satisfaction by ensuring equality for all employees, regardless of age, gender, or disability.
As such, work fulfillment ought not be restricted to a chosen handful – everybody, across the organization, ought to encounter a similar degree of prosperity.
9. Can employees nurture their creative instincts in their jobs?
While this relies upon your particular industry of activity, representatives mustn’t be smothered while showing a feeling of imagination in their positions.
In point of fact, learning and development programs can be used to improve creative abilities, making your business more open to innovation. If you don’t, you run the risk of having a workforce that doesn’t feel heard and is subjected to the same rules over and over again.
10. Do employees feel secure about their role?
Employer stability is currently a main pressing issue as innovation overturns existing cycles, and robotization compromises heritage models of working. Employers who care about the future must clearly explain how an employee’s job will change over time and prepare them for this change.
By maintaining a consistent line of communication between frontline employees and senior leadership, employees should not feel insecure about their jobs.
Aside from essentials, for example, pay, worker advantages, and work environment conveniences, these ten elements go quite far in either improving or adversely affecting representative fulfillment. And here are the reasons why you can’t afford to have unhappy employees.
Why job satisfaction is important? – 5 reasons why it is important
By effectively chipping away at fulfillment in the working environment, you end up with representatives who are more drawn in, involved, and anxious to go above and beyond. This is beneficial to your business in multiple ways.
Before we move further lets first see the benefits of job satisfaction are as follows:
- Helps increasing customer satisfaction
- Increases chances of referrals
- Increases the productivity
- Decreases voluntary turnover
- Decreases long-term satisfaction
Now, let us understand the reasons of job satisfaction importance:
- Satisfied employees translate into satisfied customers
- Voluntary turnover will come down
- You increase the chances of referrals
- Satisfaction is directly linked to your productivity
- In the long term, you can dramatically reduce HR costs
1. Satisfied employees translate into satisfied customers
If employees are dissatisfied at work, it will likely show in their interactions with customers. Contact focuses, explicitly, can’t bear to have disappointed representatives – this makes certain to show in each word they say and each mission they work on.
Low employee satisfaction can lead to workflow errors even in non-customer-facing jobs, such as a higher defect rate in manufacturing and bad software development code. For customer-focused businesses, employee satisfaction is crucial.
2. Voluntary turnover will come down
Because it brings in new talent, turnover can sometimes be beneficial to business. However, voluntary turnover looks different—you run the risk of losing top talent that you have meticulously trained over time.
Additionally, when this talent leaves the company, it brings with it tribal knowledge, which could make your products and services more competitive. On the other hand, a workforce that is content is less likely to leave.
3. You increase the chances of referrals
Without a doubt, the most efficient method of recruitment is employee recommendations. According to a report published by JobviteOpens a new window, while referrals account for 40% of all hires, they only account for 7% of all applications. An employee who is pleased with the work environment and pay scale is much more likely to recommend the company to others than an unhappy employee.
Employees will evaluate multiple factors before recommending someone else, so non-compensation-related factors account for a significant portion of this benefit.
4. Satisfaction is directly linked to your productivity
Employees are more likely to bring their best every day to work in a positive work environment. For instance, studies conducted by the Social Market Foundation and the Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE)Opens a new window at the University of Warwick found that contented workers are on average 20% more productive than dissatisfied workers!
There’s likewise an optional justification for this – high-fulfillment work environments focus on representative wellbeing. As a result, they are more likely to take care of themselves and address health, stress, and burnout issues before they affect their work.
5. In the long term, you can dramatically reduce HR costs
As part of your HR budget, you typically need to plan for both fixed and variable costs. Low fulfillment could essentially gouge the variable part of this situation – disappointed representatives require designated overviews, specific learning and improvement, extra vocation help, and at last might prompt rehiring and retraining costs on account of turnover. Every one of this needs you to contribute more than you had anticipated.
By focusing on work fulfillment at your organization, you can remain on the ball and guarantee that there are no exceptional issues emerging because of low fulfillment.
More and more businesses are making investments in initiatives that promote job satisfaction because of these advantages. According to the following statistics, this has also had a significant effect on job satisfaction.
Statistics why employee satisfaction is on the rise
The statistics on job satisfaction show a variety of results. The majority of employees are content with their workplace, so there is an upward curve on average. However, there are also obvious problem areas. To fully comprehend what we are talking about, take a look at these figures from The Conference BoardOpens a new window and UdemyOpens a new window:
- 54% of respondents say that they are fulfilled, according to the Gathering Board’s review of around 2,000 U.S. representatives. This is the highest level in the previous two decades. Contributing variables incorporate better drives, the actual climate, professional stability, one’s partners, and the idea of the actual work.
- According to a Udemy survey of more than 1,000 full-time U.S. employees, a staggering 84% of millennials currently hold the “dream job.” 54% of gen X-ers concur. In general, millennials are content with the adaptability of their work schedules, the availability of remote work environments, and the investments made by employers in their professional growth.
- When it comes to employee contentment, the mission of your company matters. Udemy found that if a prospective employer had a mission that aligned with their personal values, 62% of employees across generations would be okay with a pay cut.
- Men and women have significantly different levels of job satisfaction in both reports. According to the Conference Board’s survey, female workers are more affected by work-life balance, communication, and the people at work. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to find fulfillment in financial responsibilities.
- The survey conducted by Udemy confirmed the gender bias in job satisfaction data. Satisfaction with remote working, flexible schedules, and investments in employee development varied by at least 10 percentage points.
So, what are these numbers telling us? In the first place, organizations appear to be moving in the correct course, recognizing the main elements for representative fulfillment. Then, twenty to thirty year old’s appear to be benefiting the most from this pattern. However, in order to ensure that an inclusive strategy for employee well-being is implemented, satisfaction drivers across diverse demographics must be investigated.
Examples of satisfaction from work
Keep in mind that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to ensuring employee contentment at work. In addition to the factors we have listed, the following businesses can serve as models for you:
- Amazon
- Apple
- Starbucks
1. Amazon
Amazon is well-known as a dynamic business that places high demands on its employees’ productivity. As a crucial factor in delivering services that are centered on the needs of customers, the business has placed an emphasis on employee job satisfaction.
In a two-year study of 1,045 Amazon employees in the United States, 12 parameters of job satisfaction, including gender equality, diversity, and workplace safety, were found to be higher at Amazon than the national average. ObserverOpens a new window reported the findings of Kununu, an employer rating firm based in Austria.
2. Apple
Like Amazon, Apple additionally focuses on representative work fulfillment as a vital part for progress. In order to assess employee satisfaction, Indeed looked at thousands of job reviews from tech companies in the United Kingdom.
According to CNBCOpens a new window, Apple emerged as the leader in terms of employee satisfaction, followed by the GDS Group, Cisco, and Microsoft. Great compensation, limited items, wellbeing and health benefits, and the organization culture were the essential purposes behind Apple’s high fulfillment scores.
Although it may not be possible for every company to grant employees privileges like Amazon and Apple do, examples like these can help you focus on the significance of job satisfaction before taking the necessary steps to improve it at work.
Furnished with the meaning of occupation fulfillment, key elements affecting it, and measurements to benchmark your organization’s presentation, you can now launch the critical drives to further develop fulfillment in the new year. Be sure to conduct research, measure against the ten points we mentioned, and take into account the individual goals of employees.
3. Starbucks
Despite the fact that the expression “the customer is always right” is widely used, it does not appear to be entirely accurate behind the scenes (or at the counter in this instance).
The CEO’s mantra was that employees would take care of customers if managers looked out for them. He offered health insurance to all employees in order to accomplish this, despite being advised against it and its high cost.
Is it astounding that great authority qualities, acknowledgment, and prize given to representatives expanded work fulfillment and thusly expanded benefits for Starbucks? It is unquestionably consistent with the research presented in this article.
4. Google
Google puts a lot of effort into employee job satisfaction as well as producing content end users like us when using its products.
It is interesting to note that Google is more concerned with the types of leaders its employees are, or emergent leadership, and not as much about employee titles. This brings us back to the significance of having a positive boss for job satisfaction.
Gillett (2016) composes that Google draws in ability with serious compensation and keeps representatives fulfilled by permitting working from home. This might indicate that you value work-life balance and retention.
Gillett also mentions that the compensation and data company PayScale says that nearly three-quarters of Google employees find their jobs meaningful, citing Google’s mission of organizing the world’s information and making it accessible to everyone.
She says that Google employees are motivated to innovate and expand into new areas because they see working there as a moral rather than a business endeavor.
These sound like great profits-driven organizational goals. Moreover, Google staff absolutely show the way that work fulfillment can without a doubt prompt representatives supporting the association’s objectives and targets.
4 benefits of job satisfaction importance
What employees look for in order to achieve and maintain job satisfaction has already been discussed. But why is it so crucial? And why should businesses be concerned?
First, it is the primary responsibility of businesses to measure employee satisfaction with their jobs and to determine the root causes of dissatisfaction when employees are unhappy.
The Society for Human Resource Management’s Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement Report (Lee et al.,) explains why job satisfaction is so important. 2016) notes four advantages of ensuring representatives are happy with their work.
Here are the four benefits of satisfaction at work:
- Increased profits
- Higher productivity
- Lower turnover
- Loyalty
1. Increased profits
This is something that both employees and managers might like. Higher sales, lower costs, and a stronger bottom line are all possible outcomes of maintaining employee satisfaction.
2. Higher productivity
Employees who are more satisfied with their jobs, whether they are satisfied with the organizational culture, the rewards they receive, or the recognition they receive, can produce more and do so more effectively, regardless of their title or salary.
3. Lower turnover
Employees are less likely to leave their jobs if they are happier there. As new talent perceives employee retention as an added value, it also aids in recruiting talent of higher quality.
4. Loyalty
Employees are happier when they believe they can advance in their careers. In turn, they tend to support the organization’s goals and mission because they believe it is in their best interest. At the point when this occurs, workers might educate their companions or family members regarding the agreeableness of the association, which helps spread hierarchical altruism.
Hey, I am Sachin Ramdurg. I run and manage futuredecider.com website that helps students, graduates, and professionals, to find and decide on their future career with ultimate future career advices and future career guides. I have an overall 12+ years of career guidance experience in multiple domains which has helped multiple students, graduates, and professionals to find the best career path for their future.