Employment dispute in Christchurch where a business faced consequences for dismissing an employee before their start date, resulting in an $18.5K payout.
Understanding your people’s needs and gaining feedback is key to establishing high-performing, productive, and motivated teams.
Employee engagement, workplace culture, well-being, and employer branding are all areas that employers can develop in order to improve employee satisfaction.
Are your employees satisfied in their role?
Figures released from Stats NZ last year showed dissatisfied workers were also less likely to be satisfied with life.
The Survey of Working Life 2018, conducted between October and December 2018, asked employed people about their work arrangements, employment conditions, and satisfaction with their job and work-life balance. While most people were satisfied with their job, 4.3 percent of workers, or about 113,000 people, were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their main job.
Understanding your team
The first step to improving job satisfaction is understanding your team, their views, beliefs, and needs.
Using a blend of informal and formal engagement methods you can get to know your team relatively quickly. For example, work socials and events, team meetings, one-to-ones and Engagement / Culture Surveys – communication underpins all elements of leadership.
Establishing areas of improvement will build confidence and make it easier to utilise strengths and develop a better workplace culture.
Engagement / culture surveys
A highly engaged team is proven to boost productivity, motivation, decrease absenteeism and lower staff turnover.
Engagement / Culture Surveys provide team members with the opportunity to give open and honest feedback on the company’s people and processes.
Using this feedback, managers can identify areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. The changes they implement as a result are key to improving job satisfaction.
To ensure best practice, Engagement Surveys should be repeated regularly (6-12 months). This will allow managers to see if the change initiatives have been effective. The survey can also be used as a performance comparison tool with other companies in the same industry or sector.
Next steps
EQ Consultants’ Principal Consultant, Viv Patterson recommends: “An engaged team is proven to boost motivation, retention and drive company growth. Employers need to stay in tune with their team if they want to retain their key assets and achieve the best results for the business.
“Now is the best time to understand what your team’s needs are and how you’re going to meet them this year. What’s the cost of an engagement exercise compared to a replacement recruitment project?
“Having the right tools and skills can support managers with making improvements. An Engagement and Culture Survey is a useful tool for managers who want to know where improvements can be made. The results then provide a basis for change and set a benchmark that can be worked towards in the future.”
To discuss an engagement plan for your team, talk to one of our consultants for an informal chat on 03 366 4034 or email info@eqconsultants.co.nz