what is Employee Satisfaction?

Employee satisfaction is how content employees are with their jobs.

How do you measure Employee Satisfaction?

Satisfaction is typically measured using an employee survey or questionnaire.

What are some good employee satisfaction survey questions?

Questions cover topics such as compensation, workload, attitudes about management and organization leadership, work-life balance, staff relationships, improving working environment, work climate, and company culture. These metrics influence and help measure employee satisfaction.
See examples of survey questions related to these topics.

8 young employees of diverse colors and genders give thumbs up about the importance of employee satisfaction.

What are the elements of employee satisfaction?

Employee surveys can assess aspects of satisfaction such as:

  • Compensation
  • Working environment
  • Tools & Resources
  • Workload
  • Attitudes
  • Work-life balance
  • Staff relationships
  • Company culture

These defining factors are important to companies who want to keep their employees happy and reduce turnover, but employee satisfaction is only a part of the overall solution.


Is employee satisfaction important?

Yes, employee satisfaction is important.

Satisfaction is a prerequisite for engagement. Employees whose basic needs are not being met can't be engaged employees until the fundamentals are addressed.

It is also important to understand that satisfaction doesn't mean high performance or engagement. In fact, if your low-performing employees are also satisfied employees, then "employee satisfaction" might not be helping your company.

Employee Satisfaction versus
Employee Engagement

What is meant by employee satisfaction?

Consider the following definition of employee satisfaction:

Employee Satisfaction Definition:

Employee satisfaction is the extent to which employees are happy or content with their jobs and work environment.

Compare that with this definition of employee engagement.

Employee Engagement Definition:

Employee engagement is the extent to which employees feel passionate about their jobs, are committed to the organization, and put discretionary effort into their work.

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Engaged employees are the engine of a company,
and their performance is proof of this.

What are examples of employee engagement?

Engaged employees are motivated to do more than the bare minimum needed to keep their jobs. Examples of an engagement attitude include a strong sense of purpose and leadership, a desire to be challenged, and commitment to improve performance and workplace results.

Engaged employees are the engine of a company, and their performance is proof of this. The importance of engagement cannot be overstated. Satisfied employees are merely content with their jobs and the status quo. For some, this might involve doing as little work as possible. An employee satisfaction survey will not diagnose key factors that can help an organization improve engagement and performance.

Wondering how satisfied and engaged your employees are?

Turnover vs. Unwanted
Turnover

Some level of turnover is healthy for all companies. Employees who are not adding value or who are not a good fit for the company leave, making way for fresh new perspectives and new energy. We could call this healthy turnover. By contrast,unwanted turnover happens when a company loses talented employees that they want to keep.

Two thirty-something men shaking hands.
Two thirty-something men shaking hands.

Why is employee satisfaction a
potential problem?

Talented and motivated employees expect more from companies. For these employees, job satisfaction includes a different set of criteria.

They want to be engaged and empowered. They want to be challenged and pushed. They want their work to have meaning. They want a sense of purpose. A culture of continuous improvement and the importance of professional development opportunities for employees to grow and advance their careers, to better their performance, are key factors that contribute to the engagement of high performers.

Young black employee with beard wearing glasses sits at his desk, looking off into distance.

How does engagement affect employee performance?

As opposed to satisfied employees, engaged employees add value by pushing limits, driving growth and innovation. Companies with an engagement strategy provide informal and formal learning experiences to create significant opportunities for employees. Engaged employees will often snatch up these opportunities, satisfied employees often will not. In a culture of engagement, employees feel valued and recognized for their work.

Young Asian executive reviews workplace productivity charts.
Thirty-something white male with glasses rubs temples, looks stressed.

Employee satisfaction surveys are an important component of a broader engagement survey, but they are not a stand-alone solution. As a company, if you focus on increasing the wrong kind of employee satisfaction, you risk entrenching those employees who are adding the least value while driving your most talented employees out.

Satisfaction and Engagement Semantics

Many people use the terms "satisfaction" and "engagement" to refer to not just the basic core needs of job satisfaction, but also the added meaning, motivation, and commitment of "engagement". There is nothing wrong with that. As long as your company measures and understands the importance of striving for the factors that we include in our definition of engagement, it really does not matter what you call it.


By employing an engagement survey, asking the right questions, measuring the right factors with benchmarked results, questions and results backed by statistics, your organization can construct a strategic plan to improve employee engagement and, in turn, performance. If this is what you're doing, call it what you like.

How It Works

1

Choose the Best Survey Solution for your Organization

Employee Engagement Survey, 360 Degree Feedback, DEI Survey, Pulse Survey, Team Assessment, or Custom Survey.

2

Conduct the Survey

Prepare your organization, communicate the reasons for conducting the survey, and share the results with your teams.

3

Engage & Develop Your Employees

Implement meaningful actions and policies based on survey results.

We have helped Thousands of organizations worldwide

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