5 Ways to Measure Employee Satisfaction—And Why it Matters

Pay, Benefits, and Recognition All Factors in Job Satisfaction

While it can be easy for small business owners to get caught up in generating more revenue, when employees aren’t satisfied it can be like an undetected hole in the hull that can eventually sink the ship.

Adequate pay and employee benefits are a big part of the equation to ensuring high employee satisfaction, but without appreciation or recognition – viewed by many as the number one factors leading to poor employee satisfaction rates – often no amount of money can turn the tide against a flood of reasons as to why an employee may want to leave or not perform at a high level.

Beyond reducing turnover, increasing retention, and boosting employee productivity, employee satisfaction can also improve your company’s brand, profits, and growth. While your brand can benefit from creating a culture where an increase in morale attracts more high-quality candidates who want to work for you, research from Gallup also shows more satisfied employees drive more financial results.

Employee Satisfaction, Customer Satisfaction, and Profitability Directly Linked

Bottom line is, when employees feel satisfied and involved it also leads to satisfied customers – creating an almost interdependent link as part of the service profit chain premise between the quality of the customer experience and the employee experience. Hence, the greater employee satisfaction is the more loyalty, productivity, and value it drives, which then fuels increased customer satisfaction and loyalty and, as a result, profitability and growth to the business that employs and services them.

With employee satisfaction being so important to the bottom line, here are five ways to measure it to ensure your employees are retained, productive, and help grow your business:

1. Employee Net Promoter Score – Requires Employee to Answer Just Three Questions

The Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is one of the best ways to measure loyalty. Best of all, it only requires your employees to answer three questions – essentially boiling down to would they recommend you, what they like, and what they dislike.

Created by Bain & Company to make questions easier to answer and assess, eNPS answers are given by respondents on a scale from one to ten with nine and ten answers considered promoters, seven and eight neutral, and zero through six detractors.

2. Employee Satisfaction Survey – More Loosely Structured Method to Measure Satisfaction

Next is the more traditional employee satisfaction survey.

A much more moldable way to measure how happy your employees are, the structure and questions here, unlike with the eNPS, are entirely up to you. While it can take a lot longer to prepare, you’ll likely end up with much more information your business can use make informed decisions.

The key to getting your employee satisfaction survey right is fairly simple: make sure it’s long enough to get the data you need but not so long that it bores your employees into giving poor answers or infringes on office productivity.

3. Pulse Surveys – Allow for Up-to-the-Minute Satisfaction Evaluations

Although a relatively new phenomenon, pulse surveys are gaining momentum – with Ford Motor Co. now using them every quarter by asking six to ten questions to help them put their people first.

Shorter and quicker, pulse surveys can even be carried out weekly, biweekly, or monthly, with its key benefits being real-time management of employee satisfaction, improved employee engagement, a more positive culture, and powerful insights companies can use to bring forth positive change.

4. One-on-One Meetings – Allow for Informal Sense of What’s Really Going On

Besides surveys, one-on-one meetings allow for employees to speak about issues that may be most important and relevant to them – issues they may not feeling comfortable raising elsewhere.

5. Stay/Exit Interviews – Can Help Improve What Works, Change What Doesn’t

On top of this, stay/exit interviews provide another opportunity to yield key satisfaction insights.

Stay interviews – or interviews with long-term employees – are an excellent way to find out exactly what keeps top talent at your company. You can use this information to identify employees’ top priorities.

And when employees leave, it’s just as important to engage in their opinions as well. In this case, they’ll have an opportunity to speak freely when absolutely nothing is at stake – making the answers they give potentially more honest and helpful.

Increase Your Employee Satisfaction

Ready to help increase your company’s employee satisfaction? Employee benefits are an important part of the equation to ensuring your business retains a motivated and productive workforce.

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