How can managers improve employee satisfaction with feedback?

Because happy people tend to be better workers, a business will never be as successful as it could be unless there are measures in place to help establish and maintain employee satisfaction.

Satisfied employees are happy to come to work and willing to go the extra mile for their employer because the employees love their jobs and want to advance the company’s mission. That’s why it’s crucial to check up on them and to see how they are actually feeling. And what’s a better way to do that than asking them directly?

It’s true that for many of us, employee feedback sparks memories of uncomfortable conversations with unapproachable managers. In today’s world, however, employee feedback has evolved into ongoing listening strategies that build trust between managers and employees.

The 4 Main Reasons Why Employee Satisfaction Is Important

Improve productivity:

“Do what you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”. Working in a good atmosphere, with good vibes, and in great conditions can only be beneficial for employees.

They will no longer feel like they are forced to do their job, they will rather feel happy and motivated which will take their productivity to a whole new level. Thus, making the employees satisfied is the way to boost the overall productivity of the company and contribute to its growth.

Lower turnover:

Employee turnover has a major impact on your company’s trajectory. When employees leave, it’s costly for your business. It takes time and money to find and train a replacement. That’s why it’s best for businesses to reduce their turnover as much as possible.

It’s actually quite simple, if your employee is not happy with their job, they will go look for a new position elsewhere. Focus on their satisfaction and keep their engagement at the heart of your strategies, and you will not have to worry about them leaving anymore.

Turn employees into brand ambassadors:

We all know that happy customers are the best brand ambassadors. But you know who comes in just behind them? Your employees. While it’s true that people care a great deal about what their peers say about a brand, they also pay attention to what your workforce says about you.

More than just getting amazing Glassdoor reviews, when employees are happy with the company they work at, they automatically evolve into brand ambassadors who are proud to be a part of the organization. A satisfied employee will not think twice before promoting your products and services to their network.

Ensure higher company revenues:

Employee satisfaction translates into tangible effects that inevitably lead to a company’s increased profitability and success. Given that human beings are naturally motivated by rewards and encouraging words, many employees will tend to work harder and be willing to stay that extra hour if they are satisfied.

In fact, successful employees meet deadlines, make sales, and build the brand via positive customer interactions. However, when employees do not perform effectively, customers feel that the company is not meeting their needs, and will go seek help elsewhere.

How to measure employee satisfaction?

Now that you know how crucial employee satisfaction can be to your business, here are 5 simple steps that will help you get their feedback in an engaging and gamified way.

1. Create a highly engaging Feedback Form

Your employees are most certainly always busy and don’t have time to lose on boring and long surveys. If you want them to give you their Feedback, you need to attract them and to give them a reason to answer all of your questions. That’s why surveys don’t do the trick anymore.

The solution? switch to Feedback Forms! They are interactive, gamified, and go straight to the point. Make sure to use an engaging feedback management platform like Feedier to provide a great experience. Want to create an outstanding Feedback Form? Here are the steps that our experts recommend.

Measure satisfaction:

Start off the form by giving the opportunity to the employee to rate different aspects of the company and their job. You can ask them about their work environment, their work schedule, or simply about opportunities for personal development in the organization.

Make sure not to use more than 6 ratings as they are what your participants will see first. This step should be quick and concise, less words mean a better gut reaction.

Here are some questions examples that you can use:

• How do you feel about your work in general?

• When it comes to work, choose the most important factor to you

• How well does our company offer adequate opportunities for promotions and career development?

• How likely is it that you would recommend your company as a place to work to a friend or colleague?

2. Share your form with your employees

Creating engaging surveys that are interactive and gamified surely helps to get higher response rates. Yet another way to ensure high completion rates for your forms is by sharing them across multiple channels.

The more the channels, the better visibility your forms will enjoy. Using diverse channels allows the respondents to pick the one that is the most convenient to them.

With Feedier you can benefit from 8+ automated channels, here are the most convenient ones for your “Employee Satisfaction Feedback Form”

• Email campaign: Send customized emails directly through Feedier to reach your employee’s inbox.

• SMS campaign: Send customized SMS directly through Feedier in order to collect Feedback right from your employee’s phone. Feedier will take care of the deliverability.

• Workflow automation: Build unlimited integrations with apps like Workable, BambooHR, Slack, Gmail, Microsoft Teams, Gusto…

• QR code: The QR code method is an easy way for you to share your Feedback Form to the “real world”. Any employee can scan it and give a Feedback from a smartphone. So it can be printed anywhere on the company’s material.

3. Analyze your employees answers:

Now that you collected the data, it has to be analyzed. This step will help you uncover what makes your employees happy and what they want to be changed or improved. Work on those changes and improve your company’s work environment.

Some helpful Tips

• Tip #1 – Use text questions as less as possible because they are hard to visualize and drop your completion rate. Prefer options, smileys, and ratings question types that can be easily visualized with graphics.

• Tip #2 – Always pay attention to the context (hiring date, department, office location, manager…), it brings key information and makes data a lot more reliable.

• Tip #3 – Benchmark your responses and satisfaction internally according to the context (Department 1 vs Department 2 or manager A vs manager B).

It is important to use a platform that allows you to dig deeper into the collected data by providing you with detailed statistics and charts. For example, Feedier comes with extended reporting tools including pie charts, bar graphs, advanced filters, tags, keyword managers, and Excel exports..

You can also get a complete summary report of all your collected data in one single PDF that you can generate per department, form, time period, user…

4. Follow up with your employees:

It’s true that asking your employees for their Feedback makes them feel valued and heard, but you can’t stop there. Human interactions are actually priceless. So try to approach them and have a one-on-one meeting with every one of them.

Managers should take time to talk to their employees and to thank them for their valuable input. After answering the feedback form, the employee should be more open to discussing the reasons behind their responses.

Taking steps to engage with them to find out how things can be made better can only enhance their motivation and, thus, their productivity.

5. Make it a habit:

Measuring employee satisfaction shouldn’t be a one-time process. It is a long-term procedure that needs to be implemented periodically. Using employee satisfaction software like Feedier that helps you send automated employee pulse forms will save your day.

You won’t need to waste your time and efforts on repeating the same tasks; the platform can completely automate the process of sharing pulse Feedback forms. Thus send forms, analyze responses, follow-up and engage with employees and repeat the process periodically.

The challenge?

Although employee satisfaction is important in many ways, if an organization poses on the wrong metrics of satisfaction, it raises a big challenge. There’s always the risk of retaining employees who add the least value to your company while driving away the talented ones.

For some people, being satisfied with their job means simply completing the daily tasks within the working hours. However, an engaged employee is involved, satisfied, and enthused with their job. Engaged employees feel passionate about what they do and often perform above expectations.

In fact, engaged employees drive the company toward its goals, while satisfied employees are there to do their job and nothing more.

Need to boost your employees engagement? Try Feedier! The first all-in-one Feedback management platform that combines engaging forms and collaboration tools.