Following on from the first three parts last week, today’s blog post finishes our study of the ins-and-outs of employee satisfaction. This concluding part of Carol-Ann Morgan’s paper on Understanding and Developing Your (People) Assets emphasises the importance of benchmarking in employee satisfaction research.
Benchmarking Satisfaction Scores
Benchmarking of employee satisfaction can be carried out in two ways:
- Internal benchmarking: where scores from within the company are compared using the same questions over a period of time (repeat surveying)
- External benchmarking: where scores from other external organisations are taken and compared.
In recent years there has been something of a proliferation of “Best Employer” league tables that companies and organisations can subscribe to. Through the use of a standard questionnaire for employees, they serve as a benchmark against which companies can measure themselves. Some of these surveys are industry specific eg Computer Weekly Best Places to Work Survey, whereas others cut across sectors eg The Sunday Times Best 100 Employers and the Times Top 100 Graduate Employers Survey.
External benchmarking, however, has problems of comparability when taken out of the context of the original survey. It can be very tempting to “cherry pick” questions from several sources where the data from other companies is publicly available, however, questionnaires tend to work in their entirety, and the total composition of the questionnaire therefore has an impact on the results obtained.
The comparability of the measurement scales, the method of delivery and the timing of the data collection also impact on the degree to which comparison can be determined accurately. Finally, it raises questions as to who we should compare ourselves to and which companies should be aspired to in performance. It appears reasonable that any company or organisation should always be striving to achieve the best possible results and therefore place efforts to develop internal benchmarks against which to measure the impact of interventions.
Building an Engaged Workforce
What can be seen from the models relating to the staff work experience is that satisfaction and engagement at work is made up of several factors, some being fundamental or contractual requirements for the organisation (the ‘hygiene’ factors), such as pay and benefits and health and safety, other being the areas where the organisation must ‘go the extra mile’ to ensure effective communication, management and cooperation of and with its employees. When an organisation moves to achieving these, the impact will be seen not only in the attitudes and behaviours of its staff but also in the satisfaction of its customers. In an increasingly competitive world, the ability to find and keep good people will often be the deciding factor between organisational success and failure.
The First Direct Bank and NAGE call centres embarked on a programme to measure and address staff engagement issues. Actions included mentoring, job swap, job shadowing (at all levels in the organisation) and the creation of effective and meaningful feedback opportunities. Both organisations saw positive effects in more than staff retention rates. Bolchover (author “The Living Dead”) regards an employee’s relationship with their immediate manager as the single biggest influence on engagement, and believes that middle managers often lack leadership skills to motivate their staff and make work meaningful. He advocates the development of leadership skills to transform engagement with the organisation.
What is clear from the literature is that current thinking extends beyond job satisfaction. Employers are seeking a workforce which is more than just good at the job they do; they are seeking employees who are engaged with their organisation/company, staff who “buy in” to the company mission and goals. It is also clear that no single factor is responsible for the satisfaction of the workforce and different staff members will be motivated by different aspects of the company offering, and their own approaches to work. The modern organisation sees its’ people as key assets to be developed and nurtured; they way in which they approach their work and their interactions with customers is critical to demonstrating the brand values of the company. Emergent models of engagement offer an alternative way of approaching employee satisfaction which is more holistic and takes into account the wider needs of both employees and employers.
The higher the level of employee satisfaction, the greater the commitment and contribution to the employer
Ronan Miles, CEO Oracle UK
Employee research is the starting point in understanding the needs and perceptions of the workforce. The findings can be used to develop the strategy for building a committed workforce who will contribute to the well-being and future security and success of the organisation and avoid Bolchover’s “Living Dead” in the workplace.
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on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 2:58 pm and is filed under Carol Ann Morgan, Employee Satisfaction, White Papers.
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June 23rd, 2008 at 10:46 am
Employee satisfaction is very essential. If company is providing the benefits and the good care to each and every employee then only employer can get the best result for the business. It is true that to improve or maintain a quality in business employer must give extra benefit like medical and safety and future plans to get the best from employee.