Five top tips to increase job satisfaction for your employees

Listen in! Pick up some expert advice to a reader's question that we selected from CyberSchmooz.

Supporting a climate of high levels of job satisfaction is an intrinsic element of ensuring a good level of employee retention. Growing your business can only be done with the right support and this comes mainly through an excellent workforce.

Communicate well

Sound communication can help any business to flourish. It ensures that efficiency and effectiveness are as good as they can get. Making sure that everyone is kept in the loop within a workplace will lead to increased levels of happiness and thus more job satisfaction for employees. If there are meetings, ensure minutes are available for those staff members unable to attend. Furthermore, try to schedule meetings and get-togethers on different days of the week so that the same people don’t miss it every time. Doing so will boost morale.

Provide development opportunities

Becoming stagnant with work practices can lead to unhappiness and low levels of job satisfaction. Providing staff members with the chance to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding linked to their job roles can boost their self-esteem and confidence as well as happiness. Ensuring there is continuous improvement within your business will really help everyone – leaders, managers, employees and clients. It helps everyone to get on board with working together and a constant desire to do better and be better.

Support career growth

Many people show loyalty for their employer yet when they are ready to move upwards on the career ladder, they struggle to do so as there are next to no opportunities to do so. It is imperative that you support your employees’ career growth, whether that by via allowing them a secondment to build and develop skills in another area within your sector or you provide them with the opportunities to gain experience within a more senior role in your company. Of course, if a vacancy does not exist, it can be nigh on impossible to create it, particularly within a small business. However, if you want to keep staff wellbeing and job satisfaction high, ensuring there are ways in which they can demonstrate their leadership potential and be taken seriously is vital.

Promote workplace wellbeing

Everyone likes cake, right? Well, wellbeing at work can certainly incorporate that, but it is so much more, too. Fostering a climate of honesty, supportiveness, tolerance and respect will go some way towards ensuring job satisfaction is that little bit higher. Simple things, such as allowing a member of staff time off to see their child in a school performance or starting school, can make a huge difference, reducing stress and increasing feelings of gratitude. Likewise, providing sanitary products and emergency deodorant can help employees to feel as though they are cared for, not just another number on the payroll.

Avoid micromanagement

Everyone carries out jobs in their own way. Of course, if it’s a precise process, employees will need to follow step by step instructions. However, otherwise, allowing workers the opportunity to put their own stamp on their work is essential. When members of staff feel as though they are being micromanaged, this makes them feel as though there is a lack of trust in the workplace and that their efforts are not respected. Only intervene if and when things go wrong.

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