How to Improve Organizational Job Satisfaction

Look for ways to improve employee job satisfaction so employees are happier.

As organizational leaders, managers must ensure employees have the right compensation, benefits and working conditions to be productive and committed to the firm. When organizational job satisfaction is a problem, managers use improvement methods to elevate this important aspect of the organizational culture.

Instructions

Gauge How Employees Feel About Their Jobs

1. Look for ways to improve how employees view their employment, such as by studying how employees feel about job security, stability, relationships with their supervisors, compensation and benefits.

2. Design an employee survey that includes questions about these aspects of employment and other potential sources of job dissatisfaction suggested by the management team.

3. Administer the survey to employees. In an anonymous survey, employees can be more honest about what improvements they would like to see in the organization.

4. Use a manual method or automated tool to tabulate the results of the employee survey. For example, record all employee responses for each question on an electronic spreadsheet and find the average for each question.

5. Compile the results in a report. Share the company's scores on each question, which are called high-level results, with all workers.

6. Rank the issues by importance for managers in a report.

7. Decide when to share which ones the management will tackle first with all employees.

Take Action According to the Survey Results

1. Show employees that, as a manager, you're responding to the survey by forming a committee to study the most important issues from the survey.

2. Schedule the first meeting of the committee.

3. Present the committee with the task of studying the top five issues related to organizational job satisfaction.

4. Give the committee a deadline for completing the study.

5. On the due date, collect the report from the committee and review it with the management team.

Implement Changes

1. With fellow managers, choose at least one committee recommendation to implement immediately. Employees want managers to implement changes in response to the committee's suggestions.

2. Announce this decision to all employees.

3. Set a timeline for implementing other changes. Management can select a group of managers to meet regularly and discuss how to implement other changes more gradually.

Tips & Warnings

• Study the effects of the changes implemented in response to the committee's recommendations.

• Don't promise to implement changes that are beyond the financial means of the organization at any time.

References

• "Human Resource Management"; John H. Jackson and Robert L. Mathis; 2007
• "Keeping Your Valuable Employees"; Suzanne Dibble; 1999