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HR professionals have, for a long time, been concerned with employee satisfaction. While it is important, even necessary, to seek new ways to improve employee satisfaction as a means to retain good employees, it's important to understand that employee engagement and employee satisfaction are profoundly different.
Both are important for any successful business organization to achieve. However, without employee engagement, employee satisfaction doesn't carry quite the substantial overall positive impact on the business as a whole.
Using online survey software to determine employee satisfaction may not be thought of at first glance, but it can lead to valuable insights about what engages employees. And with these valuable insights at hand, you can make business decisions designed to increase workplace satisfaction, in addition to boosting overall employee engagement.
What is the Difference between Satisfaction and Engagement among Employees?
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) 2012 Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement Survey reveals that while 81 percent of employees in the U.S. were satisfied with their current jobs, they were only moderately engaged in their jobs, rating engagement as 3.6 on a scale of one to five. What does it all mean?
Employee satisfaction describes the extent to which employees are content with the jobs they do and the environment in which they work. Employee engagement, on the other hand, describes the passion employees feel about their work and the organization for which they work.
Employees who are truly engaged in the work they do and the businesses they work for will go the extra mile day after day. They'll put in long hours and get lost in their work. They have an emotional investment in and commitment to the work they do.
High employee engagement offers many benefits to business organizations including the following:
- Increased Productivity
- Better Customer Satisfaction
- Lower Absenteeism
- Improved Employee Retention
How Can Survey Software Increase Engagement?
While the survey tool itself doesn't increase employee engagement, it can reveal answers and solutions that help businesses improve engagement. Online survey software, allows employees to reveal not only how satisfied they are, but areas where they believe the company is succeeding, as far as engagement is concerned, and areas where there is room for improvement.
Also remember, that while employees appreciate a challenge, there's a point at which demands stop being challenging, and become more burdensome, which will lead to disengagement and job dissatisfaction.
Frequent use of the survey tool to determine engagement and satisfaction can help businesses discover where you cross the line. This allows you to make adjustments before valuable employees decide to seek employment elsewhere.
The key is to use the survey software to ask the right questions regarding engagement. What you're looking for is how caught up employees are in the work they do. Do they find it challenging? Do they enjoy their relationships with coworkers and management? What changes do they feel would lead to more engagement for them as employees?
The more you know about your employees and their level of overall job satisfaction, the better decisions you can make regarding engagement. An employee satisfaction survey can help you with that.
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