INCREASING EMPLOYEE SATIFACTION AND REDUCING TURNOVER

    Employee retention and turnover are the most objective measures of employee satisfaction/dissatisfaction in organizations. Common estimates of turnover costs range from $10,000 to $40,000 per person, depending on the position; while retention actually increases revenues.

Many companies and organizations feel that employee compen-sation is the dominate factor in employee satisfaction. Consequently, employers attempt to “buy” employee satisfaction with increased pay and benefits. In today’s competitive business environment this approach can only be taken so far. Fortunately, there is a must less expensive way to create greater employee satisfaction. It is virtually cost free and it increases productivity which significantly improves the “bottom line.”

William M. Mercer, Inc. found in surveying 206 medium to large companies in 1998 that in organizations with high turnover, compensation was the most common reason given for dissatisfaction. However, in companies with very low turnover 40% of the respondents perceived emotional factors (work satisfaction, good relationships with managers and other employees) as completely motivating their retention as compared to 21% attributing financial factors (satisfaction with compensation and benefits) as completely motivating their retention. [Note: compensation and benefits satisfy the two lowest needs of Maslow’s Hierarchy, while the emotional factors satisfy the three upper needs of the Hierarchy]

One psychologist has identified that euphoric feeling a person has when “falling in love” with someone as “feeling much better about yourself when you are with that person than when you are not.” How a person feels about themselves is their self-esteem. So when people “fall in love” their self-esteem is higher when they are around the person of their affection.

Creating an environment in the workplace that results in employees feeling better about themselves when they are in it, than when they are not, results in similar “love” of their work.

A work environment that constantly raises an employee’s self-esteem, above that she/he experiences anywhere else in their life, will be where she/he most desires to spend their time and yields very high employee satisfaction with their job and costs next to nothing.

Principle: People do more of what they enjoy and less of what they don’t enjoy!
Consequence: People who enjoy working are more productive!

Creating such a work environment is the responsibility of all corporate or organizational leadership, but most critically it is the primary job of the person the employee reports to directly. There are no business schools that teach how to create such an environment and very, very few training programs that result in the behaviors necessary to do so.

While a very small number of “managers” of people have found and refined the skills that produce such a high satisfaction environment, these are skills that anyone can learn and master through conscientious and consistent practice.