How does someone measure the success of a business?
It’s usually thought of as the amount of sales they process, the number of deals they receive, their level of profitability, objectives achieved and so on.
These are the typical ‘go-to’ metrics.
However, something which often gets overlooked, and yet is crucial to overall success, is employee satisfaction and their enthusiasm for the job. Every business wants to experience success and we all strive to achieve it; but to get on the right path, it all starts with looking inside your business first.
So – how can you get the insights you need to get your business to the next level?
Why does job satisfaction matter for businesses?
Businesses are made up of people – even sole traders.
It’s those people who determine every factor of your organisation. From the customer service and sales teams, to the shopfront staff, support employees, Finance and HR, all the way up to the Executives – everyone plays a role.
They are your company’s identity, representation and voice.
If they are satisfied and fulfilled, then they are generally more motivated to strive for excellence, treat your customers well and willing to innovate. However, if they’re unhappy, then that’s when things feel unenthusiastic or even resentful of your business.
A recent study by Oxford Saïd faculty and the University of Oxford, entitled Employee Wellbeing, Productivity, and Firm Performance supports this. It found that worker satisfaction was correlated with higher productivity, profitability, and customer loyalty. As expected, satisfaction levels were inversely correlated to staff turnover.
In another study, Happiness and productivity: Understanding the happy-productive worker by Social Market Foundation, found that happy employees are up to 20% more productive than unhappy employees. Research, summarised by Shawn Achor, has also shown that employee happiness helps many aspects of a business, raising sales by around 37%, productivity by 31%, and accuracy on tasks by 19%.
It just goes to show that when your team feels empowered and fulfilled, they can do and be their best for your business. After all, they are your most important asset.
How do you monitor job satisfaction?
With the importance of employee satisfaction being so pivotal to business success, it makes logical sense that the focus should be on keeping staff happy.
However, it appears that the adage: you don’t know what you don’t know applies here. Many organisations are unaware of how happy the employees are, and even if some may be somewhat aware, they don’t have enough evidence to take any effective action. In today’s workplace, employee happiness can no longer be considered as just a “nice-to-have”.
So, how do you find out?
There are two main ways that management can check in with their teams:
- One-on-One conversations
- Conduct Surveys
However, these situations can be quite confronting and people may feel intimidated to tell the truth because of the concern of potential repercussions.
While a manager may promise that their feedback will be taken on board, a person may still be reluctant to be honest.
A recent study, which was investigating the employee-manager relationship in regards to satisfaction, found that 80% of managers think they’re transparent with their direct reports, yet only 55% of employees agree. And, while the majority of employees say they feel comfortable communicating, 57% of managers wish their team members would be more open with what’s on their mind.
This indicates a communication breakdown that can hinder the insights gained from these surveys and conversations. After all, if respondents dilute the truth, then nothing can be learned from the results.
So, how does an organisation learn more about how employees are feeling and receive completely honest responses? Through an Anonymous Employee Survey.
Why should they be anonymous?
Employee feedback is valuable. Constructive criticisms and compliments can both help steer a business in the right direction.
However, it doesn’t really help if the feedback you get from your team isn’t completely true. While every company strives to foster a transparent and safe culture where people feel comfortable sharing their honest opinion, everyone can still feel intimidated about offending others and making the working environment uncomfortable.
An Anonymous Employee Survey safeguards their identities, which encourages your staff to give their honest feedback. When they’re free to be completely honest, the insights you will gain will be more meaningful and based on the truth.
This anonymity can also result in a higher response rate to produce more accurate data. After all, more people will be willing to participate in surveys when they’re told that their responses will remain anonymous.
This way, you can make positive changes to improve your employee satisfaction level and ultimately, your business’ overall success.
How VibeCatch can help you utilise Anonymous Employee Surveys
Vibecatch can help businesses like yours gain all of the benefits of anonymous employee surveys without any of the hassle by completely managing the privacy aspect for you.
The Vibecatch platform uses scientific-based listening and learning of your internal workforce to yield better (and trackable) results, while allowing your teams to feel comfortable and safe to provide honest feedback about their levels of job satisfaction.
These insights will continually allow your business to learn and improve.
This is where the VibeCatch platform can help you
VibeCatch is a Human Resources platform based on 15 years of proven research, offering you the opportunity to make a positive difference not just for everyone around you, but your business and customers too.
It’s simple and automated, which makes checking on your culture easy to ensure that your business is optimised.
How can your business benefit from a science-based approach?
We’d love to show you, so you can see it in action for yourself.
Book an obligation-free consultation and we’ll discuss your options to demonstrate how VibeCatch can help you help everyone.
