Today sees the start of a 4-day serialisation of our latest white paper - Understanding and Deveoping Your (People) Assets, by Carol-Ann Morgan. The next three parts will be posted on Wednesday and Thursday of this week and on Tuesday next week. This first part of the paper looks at why staff contentment is so important, and begins to look at the various literature on employee satisfaction that has emerged so far.
One in five employees has had sex in the workplace, one in three has taken Class A drugs at work, and one in six admit to ‘constantly’ surfing the web on matters totally unrelated to work, according to David Bolchover’s book “The Living Dead”. He suggests that these employees are bored with their jobs because they don’t actually have anything meaningful to do. He concludes that a successful employer provides workers with a job that is not only inherently meaningful but also has a wider purpose that is closely allied to the organisation’s wider goals.
This paper explores some of the theories about employee satisfaction at work and looks at approaches to measuring and addressing the issues raised.
Introduction
Measuring the satisfaction of customers is common practice in the business environment, particularly in the private sector, and most companies recognise the importance of understanding its customer’s perceptions, needs and motivations. However, coupled with customer satisfaction though, is understanding of what satisfies and motivates staff. The link between these two phenomena has been made by many business leaders and theorists alike, indeed some have built their business strategy around this.
Employee well-being is becoming increasingly important as organisations realise the link between happy healthy staff and their long term success
Nick Marks CIPD
Few would argue that the most valuable resource of any organisation is its people. Staff well-being and their level of satisfaction has been found to directly impact on organisational performance and ultimately organisational success; dissatisfied staff are unlikely to foster a satisfied customer base, and dissatisfied customers directly impact on the bottom line. Thus, measurement of the staff experience is an integral part of developing the customer experience. The link between these issues arose from the premise of the service profit chain:
- Internal quality drives employee satisfaction
- Employee satisfaction drives loyalty
- Employee loyalty drives productivity
- Employee productivity drives value
- Value drives customer satisfaction
- Customer satisfaction drives customer loyalty
- Customer loyalty drives profitability and growth
Source: Harvard Business Review OnPoint
The theory goes that if staff feel valued and involved, customers have great experiences dealing with the service organisation, and then positive business results follow.
The “Contract”
In its simplest form, the “contract” between employer and employee involves the supply of skills and service in exchange for remuneration, with the employer providing the tools to do the job. However, expectations have shifted over time, and both employers and employees now demand more from either side of the equation. The role of two way feedback at all levels within the organisation in developing a happy motivated workforce has been explicitly recognised. Appraisals which prioritise and evaluate work skills and identify staff development and training needs are common place, however, it is not always common place to seek feedback from staff about their level of satisfaction, happiness and/or loyalty to the company/organisation.
Happy Complacency Theory
There has been considerable debate on what employers want from their employees and what employees want from their employers. Early approaches to staff satisfaction tended to focus on the staff member experience; a one way perspective, often quite divorced from the organisational goals and expectations.
Most of us can relay a customer experience when, seemingly “happy” staff, enjoying their place of work, display little interest in serving the needs of the customer or of the organisation. This lies at the centre of the debate about the impact of staff “happiness” at work, and whether indeed, “happiness” is what an organisation should be striving for amongst its workforce.
Our customers don’t pay for us to have a dodgy day, they pay good money to receive a consistent level of service, and so each of our staff has a responsibility to lift themselves and their colleagues. I have learnt that you can only do this when you have champions in key areas – staff who really champion the cause and influence people.
Ian Mahoney, Reebok Club London
It has been suggested that people who are very satisfied are not necessarily high performers, and with the constantly changing business environment, employees who are too happy and content, feel less inclined to seek improvements, change, or do things differently. In today’s climate, this tends not to be a good position for any business; rather, a company needs staff who are energised, motivated and eager or willing to try something new.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 10:03 am and is filed under Carol Ann Morgan, White Papers, Employee Satisfaction.
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