Is employee satisfaction all about money?

Employee satisfaction has become an important ingredient for success of every organization. Knowing what the employees actually want in addition to the facilities and perks offered by the employers, can be an interesting exercise, and help both the employee and the employer in creating a high-performance workplace. Employees with higher job satisfaction believe that the organization will satisfy them in the long run, care about the quality of their work, are more committed to the organization, have higher retention rates, and are more productive.

There are various factors that lead to employee satisfaction such as competitive salary, opportunity for growth, fair rewards, adequate authority, interesting and challenging job, appreciation of work, good working conditions, job security, benefits and perks etc. But the organizations need to identify the most essential ones and take actions accordingly.

A research conducted in two of the leading banks in Kathmandu showed some interesting facts and figures. The study revealed that career development opportunity (28%) is the most important factor contributing to employee satisfaction, followed by competitive salary (21%), good working environment and adequate facilities (20%), challenging job (17%), and adequate authority (14%). Employees are more satisfied when they have challenging opportunities at work. This includes chances to participate in interesting projects, team leadership, special assignments as well as promotions. The study also revealed that 62% of the employees were moderately satisfied.

Human Resource is an integral part of any organization and one of its functions is to see the overall satisfaction of the employees. The research revealed that the employees are moderately satisfied, but had the HR department been efficient, the level of satisfaction would have been even higher. 85% of the employees said that job satisfaction survey was not done on a regular basis. Thus, organization should conduct job-satisfaction surveys from time to time to know the general attitude of employees toward their job. Information collected from the survey should be communicated to managers through survey feedback using both comparative data and employee comments. When corrective action is taken; details of what was done, and what the management is doing should be shared with the employees as soon as possible. In this way, managers can improve the performance of their employees, which further improves overall performance in an organization.

Organizations must keep in mind that although money is important to every employee, but there are things beyond money like respect, professional growth, reward and recognition, and open communication that can ensure employee loyalty and satisfaction. They should not only stress on standardizing human resource policies, but also aim at creating options that allow for customizing to individual needs. Organizations need to go beyond salary and perks to improve workplace for meeting employee expectations.

Satisfaction is what everyone aspires for. Thus, in order to increase the level of satisfaction, the organization especially the HR department should look into matters such as improvement in the working conditions, fair appraisal system, career development opportunities, employee relation programs and regular trainings to enhance their skills and capabilities.