The prodigious Steve Jobs once famously said, “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” Without a doubt, great work is the glue that allows businesses to grow and prosper, but what is the secret sauce that allows people to love showing up every day? The answer lies in work satisfaction, and the great news is that this is something that we can forge and foster within our teams.
Employee satisfaction is an important facet of work culture—something that we support here at K Factory every day as we provide a range of companies with stylish and coordinated branded workwear. When a workplace culture is going strong, teams synergise, productivity rises, and turnover drops. Jumping back to supporting work satisfaction specifically, there are many reasons to place this marker at the top of your employer’s to-do list. Estimates place the cost to the global economy of employee disengagement at around $8.1 trillion every year. Happily, work satisfaction is an ideal salve for employee disengagement, so let’s get stuck on how to ramp it right up!
Why Employee Satisfaction Should Be On Your Radar
Research from Glassdoor a while back revealed that the size of a person’s paycheck doesn’t play as much of a role in their work satisfaction as many had previously imagined. Instead, they found that factors like workplace culture, development opportunities, leadership communication, and values were where satisfaction was far more likely to sprout. So, what are the warning signs that employee satisfaction might have become a little deflated?
If your team seems to be lacking motivation, turning up late, forgetting tasks, or putting off getting things done until the last minute, then there’s a good chance their work satisfaction has taken a tumble. Equally, they may be showing signs of stress and unhappiness simply because their spidey senses are telling them that their daily role isn’t meeting their needs. Over time, this kind of disengagement can begin to erode workplace culture, leading to a loss of productivity, the departure of treasured talent, and all sorts of other potential problems.
How to Help Your Team Experience Greater Work Satisfaction
Jumping back through time to another great thinker, philosopher Aristotle once penned the phrase, “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in work.” If that sounds like something you’d like to harness by realising your team’s work satisfaction potential, consider these tips:
• Get loud about recognising achievements
Let your team know that you value them with praise and non-cash rewards, like indulgent
vouchers or cool customised accessories from K Factory.
• Give employees the power to shape their roles
Many workers see their roles from a new perspective in the post-covid era. Recognise
that shift by giving them greater autonomy to define what their days look like and the
opportunity to train and take on more responsibility if they are ready to grow.
• Make wellness part of your workplace vocabulary
When your employees feel more satisfied in life overall, they’ll carry that with them to
work every day. Supporting them in health, fitness, nutrition, and stress management is a
great way to ensure they can be at their best, whether that’s through fun seminars or
group activities and branded sportswear.
• Hit the management sweet spot
When the leadership pendulum swings, extremes always leave a dent in employee
satisfaction. What’s key is to avoid micro-management but also ensure clear and open
communication. When your team knows that you’ve got their back, they’ll be set to show
you what they can do while still reaching out when they need to.
• Talk to your team
Every workplace and workforce is unique, so why not strike up a conversation? Share
that increasing satisfaction is your goal, and see what your employees suggest. They
might surprise you, and the results might surprise you even more!
One last quote for the road? Why not, let’s go out with Oprah, who said, “You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job and not be paid for it.” Now, that’s pretty ambitious for even the most engaged employees, but it’s something to think about. On a sliding scale from disengaged to Oprah-level dedicated, where might your team land? If you’re ready to take action on workplace satisfaction, get started with some of the ideas above, and turn to K Factory for all your customised and branded apparel needs. Our team is ready to assist!
