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Where is the research that says what is the right question(s) to ask for employee satisfaction?

Maria

Hi All

I have been asked to find out what our employee satisfaction or happiness score is for working in our company.  Despite discussing with him how measuring employee engagement is tough because it is hard to define and complex because you can be happy at work but not get enough feedback from your line manager or you can get a ton of feedback but have no opportunity for growth or you can have the opportunity for growth but no work life balance, and diligently going through various metrics i.e feedback, recognition, happiness, relationship with peers, relationship with managers, personal growth, alignment, satisfaction, wellness, ambassadorship, the COO is still adamant there is just one measure that will tell him how 'happy/satisfied' we all are.

I have come across the employee satisfaction index and these 3 questions:

How satisfied are you with your workplace?
How well does your workplace meet your expectations?
How close is your workplace to your ideal job?

I think these will do the trick but in order to 'convince' the COO, (it is frustrating!) where can I find the research that says these are THE questions to ask.

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  • the COO is still adamant there is just one measure that will tell him how 'happy/satisfied' we all are

    He's right. It's called the "sickness absence rate". Although I also like to match it against the "employee turnover rate" and "holiday use rate".

    The problem with asking your employees how they are feeling about their work satisfaction is that *employees do not trust their employer*.

    This is true of almost all employee populations, regardless of how good the relationship is and/or how committed they are to the work. Employees don't trust employers enough to consistently (as a population) tell them the truth in a usefully measurable way.

    That's not to say that surveys are useless. They have value in terms of setting baselines and sometimes getting specific insights into problem areas. But they aren't good as a one-off measure of satisfaction.

    Generally, by far the most reliable indicator of employee satisfaction is sickness absence. If it's below your industry standard, satisfaction is probably better than average. It's above, then the opposite. If it's below *and* you have an OSP programme, then it's very good.

    If you have no OSP and your sickness absence is below average, you should check it against the turn over rate. If it's more than ~15% (adjusted for industry), people are too scared to take sickness absence and leaving instead.

    If you have OSP *and* a low absence rate, check your holiday use rate. If employees are consistently taking all of their holiday entitlement, and you've got a low sickness absence rate, *and* you offer OSP, you have stellar employee satisfaction. But if few employees take all of the holiday entitlement they are allowed, then you have a culture of fear (probably got a turnover rate above 20%).

    The best things about all of these figures is that you don't need a survey to get them and, because they measure behaviour not opinion, they are objectively reliable.
  • in reply to Robey
    Thanks Robey, that's really helpful.
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