If you’re looking at how to improve employee satisfaction, you’ve come to the right place. But first, why is it important to focus on improving staff satisfaction and what does success in that area look like?
What are the benefits of high employee satisfaction?
It sounds obvious to say ‘high employee satisfaction is a good thing’, but why? Some core benefits of high employee satisfaction rates include:
- Improved staff motivation – when employees feel their employers care about them and they feel satisfied at work, they’re more motivated to work harder for the company.
- Increased staff retention – according to research from Totaljobs[1], 89% of the UK’s workforce are actively looking or thinking about looking for a new job. If you want to retain staff, you need to be competitive with the market and increase staff satisfaction to retain good staff.
- Maximised productivity and quality of output – if you have a satisfied and motivated workforce, they’re going to be more committed to your company, which means they’ll repeatedly and consistently put the effort in to help achieve the results your business needs.
Research by Aviva in 2022 identified that People and Culture was the 6th most important thing for people looking for a new job. However, it was 4th most important for why people stay in their jobs[2].
Understand current employee satisfaction
First, it’s important to understand your employees current level of satisfaction. The best way to do this is to talk to them.
Depending on the size of your company, you may be able to arrange one to one conversations (perhaps over a Lavazza coffee). However, this is not always feasible.
Another easy way to get feedback from your staff on employee satisfaction is to send out a survey. We would recommend, if possible, making it ‘anonymous’ feedback, to encourage more honest and unfiltered comments.
Most companies will deploy these satisfaction surveys to their staff every year, to enable to them to track and measure any changes in staff happiness.
Things to ask in an employee satisfaction survey
There are dozens of recognised staff satisfaction surveys and platforms you can adopt, but which questions should you ask your staff in an employee satisfaction survey? These types of survey are commonly split into three sections focussing on feedback regarding:
- Workplace culture
- Company management
- The job itself
We’ll focus on workplace culture below.
Here are five key questions you could be asking your staff about workplace culture:
- Do you feel cared about by someone in the company?
- Are you happy with our company’s culture?
- Do you feel the company is open to change and willing to adapt to your needs?
- Do you feel as though your voice is heard and valued in our company?
- How would you rate your work-life balance?
One way to improve employee satisfaction…
As a company, you need to show your staff that you care about them and promote a culture that prioritises the individual’s wellbeing.
One way you can do this is to encourage building strong relationships between colleagues. This can be done through organising social events, team building days and offering opportunities for employees to talk to each other in a non-work focused setting, even inside the office.
In our experience, the simplest way to do this is to encourage ‘water cooler’ moments. Have a relaxed area with an office coffee machine, or a hot drinks station and sit down area that allows staff to interact with each other in an environment where they can talk about something other than work. This will help build relationships and ultimately increase staff satisfaction.
By doing this, you’ll help promote a workplace culture that encourages staff to take a necessary break from work whilst interacting with other colleagues to build relationships. This is most effective, if you offer high quality tea and coffee in a setting that is separated from the rest of the office. In order to do this, we’d recommend getting a Lavazza Professional Bean to Cup coffee machine in a breakout area – somewhere with neutral décor, comfortable seating and a lot of open space.
If you’d like to get some expert advice on how to fit a coffee machine in your workplace to maximise its impact and effectiveness in your workplace, please get in touch to find out more or request a quote today.
[2] https://careers.avivainvestors.com/working-with-us/finding-out-what-matters/
