Attitude
Communication
Empowerment
Feedback Components
Integrity Issues
Productivity
Leadership
Management
Teamwork
Employee satisfaction and retention have always been important issues for employees. After all, high levels of absenteeism and staff turnover can affect your bottom line, as temps, recruitment and retraining take their toll. But few practices (in fact, few organizations) have made job satisfaction a top priority, perhaps because they have failed to understand the significant opportunity that lies in front of them. Satisfied employees tend to be more productive, creative and committed to their employers, and recent studies have shown a direct correlation between staff satisfaction and client satisfaction. Managers who can create work environments that attract, motivate and retain hard-working individuals will be better positioned to succeed in a competitive environment that demands quality and cost-efficiency. What's more, managers may even discover that by creating a positive workplace for their employees, they've increased their own job satisfaction as well.
Use the 5 Success Factors for Job Satisfaction: Acknowledgement, Challenge, Service, Respect and Purpose
When Acknowledgement is Lacking:
- Major milestones come and go with no apparent recognition from management.
- Great effort and performance go unrecognized because "that's what we pay you for."
- Everyone seems too busy to acknowledge anything. "Quick, on to the next project!"
+ Employees are acknowledged for a job well done -- not with extrinsic rewards but with genuine appreciation.
+ The organization takes time to celebrate its major efforts (the journey) and successes (the destination).
+ Following a big project, people are able to pause, get a sense of closure, and savor (however briefly) their accomplishment.
When Challenge Is Lacking:
- Employees seem afflicted with a serious case of organizational boredom.
- "I can do my job with my eyes closed."
- People are falling far short of their potential, not because they lack talent and skill, but because the workplace fails to call on their full expertise.
+ The workplace is full of challenges for employees who want them.
+ People are in work situations that require them to make full use of their talents.
+ The challenges are demanding yet doable.
When Service is Lacking:
- Jobs tend to foster isolation, making it difficult for people to help each other.
- A "win-lose" mentality prevails throughout the workplace -- to such a degree that there's an unspoken pressure to look the other way when a colleague needs help. This is especially the case between work units and divisions.
- At best, talk of mentoring and coaching activities -- and other efforts to promote people serving people -- remains just talk.
+ Employees have all sorts of opportunities to help one another in formal and informal ways.
+ There's an organizational obsession with helping others to be successful. "Others" is broadly defined: colleagues, customers, the community.
+ Each and every employee can quickly name the customers they serve.
When Respect Is Lacking:
- The respect level varies widely throughout the organization.
- Rules and policies have a patronizing tone.
- Employees are often told what to do -- instead of being free to figure things out for themselves.
+ Employees show respect for one another regardless of rank and title.
+ When decisions are made, there's a thoughtful assessment of how each option may affect people.
+ People are treated like adults.
+ The golden rule is an implicit working principle throughout the organization.
When Purpose is Lacking:
- The purpose of work seems to be the completion of one task...then another...and another...
- The overall mission (assuming one has been articulated) is inward-looking.
- Conversations about purpose focus exclusively on products, services, and money-making -- never on people.
When Purpose is Thriving:
+ The organization has a larger purpose -- something beyond producing goods/services, making money, or even being the best in a given business.
+ Individual employees feel that their work makes a positive difference in some way.
+ "What I do contributes to the greater good.
+ The organization is mission-driven -- and not rule-driven.
http://www.meaningatwork.com/akeyfind.html
www.workplacetoolbox.com