Do your employees love their jobs?

Feb 13th, 2018

Do your employees love their jobs? What is love in the workplace anyway? How would you know if employees love their jobs?

Today we are considering the impact of love on an organization. Loving your job can also be described as engaged or having high employee engagement. Employee engagement is usually described as being connected to the organization, giving your best, and feeling committed to the company’s values and goals. It is no wonder that countless studies show a high correlation between employee engagement and company performance! Can you imagine the power of a committed, engaged group on your company performance? The possibilities for growth and stability are endless. That said, we continuously meet companies who are struggling with employee satisfaction, performance, and retention. In almost every company we meet, the lack of employee engagement is a result of time. Cultivating a highly engaged employee takes time, commitment, and planning by the leaders of the organization. It is easy to prioritize other matters first, but if you are interested in increasing employee engagement, and the number of your employees who love their job, we suggest you make time and the payoff will be worth it!

Here are our top 5 suggestions for increasing employee love and satisfaction in your organization:

1. Learn how your employees want to grow in their profession. Traditionally, we have used the term “career development planning” to refer to the structured and regular time a manager spends with an employee to help cultivate development and growth. We find that using the word career makes leaders and employees focus too much on promotional opportunities. Since many businesses have limited promotional opportunities, and only a portion of your teams even want to be promoted, we suggest you concentrate on having professional development conversations instead. These conversations are focused on utilizing and expanding an employee’s skills, abilities, and desires.
2. Conduct exit interviews. Once a person resigns from an organization, it is common to just utilize the notice period to transition work, minimize the impact that other employees might feel about the departure, and work on finding a replacement. We suggest that you take the time to also interview the employee about their time at your company, what drove them to consider a new job, and their suggestions for the organization. It is usually best for this interview to be done by a third party, or at least a person not closely related to the employee. You will be given incredible insight on the perception of the business and the leadership and valuable information to consider.
3. Be sure to your Compensation, Benefits, and Rewards are competitive, reasonable, and take your unique population into account. We find that some companies make decisions on pay philosophy or benefit mix based on arbitrary factors. Look at your employee population and what is important to them, evaluate what kind of people you want to attract and retain, and build a cost-effective program that makes sense for your organization.
4. Respect each employee’s personal boundaries. While some employees will fill their desk space with tons of family pictures, make Friend Requests to all their co-workers, and love to spend the first part of every week recapping the weekend, there are some employees who would prefer to keep their non-work life private. We find that most employees are somewhere in between, but we remind managers that someone’s personal boundaries are not a reflection of their love or engagement with you as an organization. Instead, your care and understanding of each person as an individual with individual preferences is a powerful way to increase employee satisfaction.
5. Remember that work environment is a key factor in employee engagement and satisfaction. Be sure that employees feel safe and think about how you can build a relationship of trust with your employees. The introduction of smart phones has presented opportunities for remote work and flexible hours, but it can also create the feeling that an employee cannot “shutoff”; it is important to remember that work environment goes beyond the actual office and extends to how an employee needs to react to email, texts, and phone calls. Take the time to evaluate your overall work environment and how your employees get work done in this environment. If there are opportunities to respect boundaries, increase trust, or increase a sense of belonging, make the effort to adjust and your efforts will be rewarded.

If you need help with implement any of these strategies into your workplace, please reach out to us at info@tocgrp.com.