While working with clients earlier this month, I began thinking about the reasons behind creating surveys to find out if employees are satisfied with their jobs. Business thinking in the early 1900s would have thought this was crazy. After all, we pay our workers, provide some with health insurance and often compensate them while they are on vacation - all benefits that were unheard of a century ago. So what’s up with employee satisfaction? Does it predict performance at work? Or is there something more we need to be asking?
To begin exploring employee satisfaction, let’s determine a definition. Typical employee satisfaction surveys determine job satisfaction by asking for feedback on several aspects of an individual’s job, including pay, benefits, paid holidays and vacation, working hours, working conditions and training.