How to Create Job Satisfaction and Employee Morale
Employee morale and job satisfaction have a direct impact on a company's productivity, efficiency, and ultimately, its bottom line. Assessing morale and job satisfaction levels requires results from an employee opinion survey, comments from employee focus groups and exit interviews, or observation of workplace attitudes and interaction. Of these methods, observation is probably the most difficult way to assess morale and job satisfaction. It's too subjective, and it may be impossible to "read" employee behavior and arrive at reasonable conclusions about the workforce. Absent current results from an employee opinion survey, or focus group comments, there are other ways to assess and create employee morale and job satisfaction.
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Assess how well your company creates job satisfaction. Determine if employees understand what the company expects, both overall and in relationship to their specific roles. Review job descriptions for accuracy, and analyze whether your workers are in positions suitable for their skill sets.
A Psychology Today article entitled, "10 Tools to Create and Maintain Job Satisfaction" makes this suggestion: "Encourage co-workers to take care of themselves by getting educated and working on new projects. People who are not growing do not feel good about themselves and this will cause them to feel they are bringing less into the company." Employees appreciate opportunities for professional development. In addition to improving job skills, employees feel valued when an employer invests in their success by providing training and development options.
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Train supervisors and managers to provide regular, consistent feedback. This is a key element that strengthens the employer-employee relationship. Job satisfaction and employee morale can soar when employees receive feedback--it means their supervisors and managers want them to produce the best work possible.
Becoming a successful and productive employee is another path to job satisfaction. Employee performance affects morale for individual employees as well as departments or work groups. According to Drs. Syptak, Marsland, and Ulmer, authors of "Job Satisfaction: Putting Theory Into Practice," employee job satisfaction is connected to employees' perception of the value of their work. Their article states: "Perhaps most important to employee motivation is helping individuals believe that the work they are doing is important and that their tasks are meaningful." The poor performance of just one employee in a team project can impact the entire group's morale. In this scenario, top performing employees feel they're wasting effort when one employee fails to pull her weight.
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Foster positive behavior in the workplace through modeling, recognition and open communication. When managers model positive behavior, employees are likely to emulate that behavior out of respect for leadership. When employers recognize employees for a job well done, it conveys an important message--the employer realizes employee contributions impact the company's success, and the employer appreciates employee talent. The failure to communicate with employees can result in lowered job satisfaction and morale levels. Communicate frequently and openly with employees. Well-informed employees feel valued, and are thus likely to have greater job satisfaction and higher levels of employee morale. Talk about company changes, status, awards and progress during all-staff or department meetings to create a sense of community.
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