7 ways to measure employee satisfaction

Are your employees engaged? Do you have a happy workforce? Would you like to know what they appreciate about your organization? The best way to understand this is to analyze their level of satisfaction. But, in order to get a clear understanding of what is going on in your workplace, you need to determine how to measure employee satisfaction.

Many indicators can give you an idea regarding how your workers feels about their jobs and the company. For example, a high turnover is a sign that something is not right. It is also important to understand the exact source of their discontent. Does it come from the leadership style? Is there a career evolution issue? Similarly, you need to know which aspects are positive. Do they like the flexibility of a hybrid work model? What do they think about the workplace tools provided?

From employee satisfaction surveys to metrics such as the eNPS or the ESI, various techniques are used to determine satisfaction at work and obtain pertinent information. Here are 7 ways that will help you measure how happy and satisfied your team members are!

1. Introduce Employee Satisfaction Surveys

Let’s start with one of the most relevant ways of knowing if your workers are satisfied or not: the employee satisfaction survey. This tool can be 100% personalized according to your organization and your team. However, if you are searching for a generic overview of the level of satisfaction at your company, nine elements should then appear in your questionnaire:

• Work environment (enjoyable, well-equipped, supportive, employee-centric…)
• salary
• workload
• career evolution
• culture
• work-life balance (employee wellbeing, flexibility…)
• management style (recognition, communication, support…)
• workplace connection
• equipment (physical and virtual tools).

This type of questionnaire should be conducted regularly to help understand what employees’ expectations are and identify improvements and weaknesses. Many changes are constantly happening and may have an impact on your workers and how they define their  priorities. The presence of different employee backgrounds in an organization is a major advantage, but it needs to be acknowledged and accounted for. A Baby Boomer might not have the same expectations as a Millennial, for instance. These surveys enable you to have clear insight into how satisfied your workforce is, while also showing you what increases or reduces their satisfaction level.

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2. Install a suggestion box virtually or in your office

Sharing positive feedback is easy but talking about company weaknesses with your manager is sometimes a bit trickier. Workers are often worried about the consequences if they honestly express their discontent and therefore rather keep their opinions to themselves. For businesses, it is very important to know how they feel, even if it is negative. This is the only way to improve. An unhappy and unengaged workforce can decrease productivity, increase burnout and high turnover, and spur a negative brand image. 

To collect genuine feedback and measure your employee satisfaction, you can install a suggestion box. We recommend you place one in a common area of your physical workspace and offer an online alternative for your remote team members. In a hybrid work model, this allows everyone to contribute feedback at any time and from anywhere. People can express their concerns without waiting for the next employee satisfaction survey and do it anonymously.

3. Learn how to measure employee satisfaction in a one-to-one meeting

A one-to-one meeting should never be your only way of measuring employee satisfaction. However, if you have a relationship with your team members founded on trust and transparency, it can be complimentary in understanding expectations better. Prepare a few questions in advance to get relevant answers and a clear overview of how they feel about their job and their working environment. Is your goal to have a general idea of their level of satisfaction? Then your conversation should be based on the nine themes mentioned in the employee satisfaction surveys section. Otherwise, create a list of questions that are more specific to the topic you wish to discuss. Common conversation starters include :

• How do you feel about your position?
• Does the company answer your needs?
• Do you consider your salary to be fair? 
• Which changes would you like to see within the organization?
• Do you think your job allows you to have a good work-life balance?
• Do you believe that your role is fulfilling?
• etc.

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4. Use the Employee Satisfaction Index

The Employee Satisfaction Index (ESI) is a measurement based on three questions aiming to determine the level of work satisfaction of your employees. These three questions are:

• How satisfied are you with your current workplace?
• How well does your current workplace meet your expectations?
• How close is your current workplace to the ideal one?

A score from 1 to 10, where 1 represents the lowest grade and 10 the highest, is requested for each question above. From these results, the following formula is applied to obtain the final company’s ESI score:

ESI = [((question mean value/3)-1)/9]*100

The Employee Satisfaction Index is a great first approach to analyze the current satisfaction status in your company is. Nevertheless, you will need to combine it with other more specific tools to get more detailed answers.

5. Determine your employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)

Inspired by the Net Promoter Score system from Bain & Company, Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld, which aims at measuring customer loyalty, the eNPS  requires employees to respond  to one question: ‘How likely is it that you would recommend the organization as a place to work on a scale from one to ten?’ The respondents are then divided into three categories according to their answers:

• the ‘promoters’ are the workers who selected nine or ten.
• the ‘passive’ or ‘neutrals’ are individuals who gave a score of seven or eight.
• the ‘detractors’ are the team members that rated six or below.

To get the final employee Net Promoter Score you then apply the following method:

eNPS = percentage of detractors - the percentage of promoters

You can use this employee satisfaction metric on a regular basis (quarterly or annually) to analyze your overall progression in the long term.

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6. Take advantage of employee engagement platforms

Many employee engagement platforms on the market allow you to measure and improve your work satisfaction score. These online solutions help you get relevant feedback from your team to better meet their needs. Employee happiness, satisfaction, engagement, and wellbeing in the workplace are all very important aspects that are all interconnected. These digital tools are key to keeping a close eye on these elements  and making sure they are fulfilled in order to drive  more engagement and satisfaction.

If you are looking for an easy way how to measure employee satisfaction, here are a few employee engagement platforms you can have a look at:

• TINYpulse: employee-centric online resource aiming to collect feedback to improve your workplace.  
• Qualtrics: digital solution supporting you in asking the appropriate questions, listening to what your workforce needs, and responding with the right actions.
• OfficeVibe: people-first experience platform fostering constructive feedback and transparency for more happiness in the workplace. 
• 15Five: virtual tool focusing on creating effective leaders, engaged workers, and top-performing organizations.
• LeapSome: all-in-one online solution enabling OKRs, performance reviews, engagement surveys, and much more. 

7. Evaluate satisfaction at work by studying your other workplace analytics

Workplace analytics from other sources can also indicate the level of employee satisfaction. For example, the best desk booking software collects important statistics about the way your office is used. If you notice that your employees are coming to the office less, it could be important to learn  why. Is it because they aren’t happy about the atmosphere on-site? Do they have better equipment at home or in a third workplace? Keeping track of other data can give you some clues about how satisfied they are. Of course, you will need to conduct a proper employee satisfaction survey to have a more detailed understanding of the situation.

Knowing how to measure employee satisfaction is fundamental for every HR department because building a model that is employee-centric is crucial to growing and succeeding. Several tools are available to collect genuine feedback and gauge the level of satisfaction at work. They should be carried out regularly and constructed in a way that allows you to detect areas for improvement. As your ESI and eNPS increase, they become crucial data for your HR resources. Not only will your team members realize your efforts but potential new talents will also be thrilled by this type of information. To make hybrid work, using a people-first desk booking solution is essential.

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Do you want to discover how it can help you and your team? Request a free demo of the deskbird app!