Employee Satisfaction: Fire Your Boss Or Earn More Money?

There was a recent employee satisfaction study that reported most employees would rather fire their boss rather than to get a raise. I’m not kidding. This is an interesting study because it teaches a few important lessons. The first is that money is not always a primary motivator for employees. Instead, the primary motivator may be to feel like an equal. Or to feel the development of some sort of acrimonious relationship.

The lesson for leaders is to foster healthy and supportive relationships with employees. These are the keys to retention and engagement. Of course, these are all things that we know, but how do you do it? How do you make it work? In other words, what’re the actual day-to-day actions? And what does that look like?

Creating a Satisfaction-Oriented Team

That’s where coaching and peer advisory boards can excel. This is because a team can support you in putting together a tailored program. To be honest, if that’s not your thing. If you’re not someone who cares to have relationships with your staff. Or who feels like emotional intelligence isn’t their strength. Then put someone else in that role. Let’s find someone else who will nurture and connect relationships. It doesn’t have to be you.

CEOs often have reached their status because they advance in technical pursuits. This may stem from a high IQ. Or because the organization was something they were passionate about. Regardless of whether it’s a service or a product. And over many years reaching that level of success has taken them into a role that they’re not as good at/aren’t ready to fulfill.

Employee Satisfaction Survey

So let’s look at it from a practical perspective and find somebody who can fill that role. As a result, that organization can be successful and the founder and CEO can be happy about coming to work every day.

Employee Satisfaction: Control The Controllable

The topic of employees being happy in the workplace makes for interesting conversation. It’s one that we’ve had speakers join our groups and explore with the CEOs and leaders that attend. These speeches conclude two things. That we can’t control the sentiment, and we can’t control the level of happiness in a direct fashion. But, we can control:

  • The environment
  • The culture
  • And our personal level of contribution

Not being in denial of these factors is a crucial part of an organizational change. There are tools out there such as “Officevibe”. It serves as a meter to measure your staff. This includes identifying the level of morale, and the sentiment of the office. I also have a membership with a company called Lojistic. Its located in the Costa Mesa area. And they have been using this tool on a regular basis for a long period of time.

Prevent Happiness Fatigue

This program allows them to plot on a weekly and monthly basis the office happiness and also the morale level. As a result, this allows them to catch things before they’ve strayed off course. In other words, if they’re seeing a consistent number coming in. About employee happiness, employee contentment, and culture. And then there’s a sudden there’s a drop. They know to go out and ask questions. This allows them to:

  • Find out what’s happening before people quit
  • Discourage their employees from searching the job market
  • Increase engagement and happiness in their staff
  • To maintain customer satisfaction and loyalty

Moreover, there are plenty of tools at your disposal. Officevibe is a personal favorite because it analyzes what’s important. And that it’s a part of running a successful organization.

How Leaders Can Improve

Leaders of organizations can also dictate the level of employee satisfaction. As well as the morale within an organization in many different ways. The obvious way is to do a regular, anonymous survey. There are tools like Officevibe that are excellent for doing that. And if you chart on a regular basis where your team is with their satisfaction, their morale. You’ll start to see patterns. Consequently, you will know when something’s going wrong and it’ll allow you to make a change.

You also can create an environment where feedback is acceptable. Many CEOs that I work with think that they’re approachable. And that anybody can talk to them about anything. But this is often not the case. They forget they’re in a position of power. This creates fear if receiving honest feedback.

In conclusion, there are great tips and tricks to help you create an awesome work culture. And there are plenty of resources help you achieve this goal. This is a topic we’ve had professional speakers talk about. In addition, it’s a topic I talk about when coaching. The most important thing about culture. Is that you can develop it no matter your current situation. Yet, it’s critical to make an organization that’s healthy and strong. Bottom line you need this to be able to take care of your clients.