What’s the Value of Measuring Employee Satisfaction?

Derek Irvine, VP of Client Strategy and Consulting at Globoforce, recently made the case in his blog Recognize This! that there’s value in employee satisfaction surveys – when they’re conducted and analyzed properly. Says Irvine: In various blog posts over the years I’ve explained the difference between employee satisfaction and employee engagement. It could be easy to view some those posts as a “knock” on employee satisfaction. But when viewed through the proper lens (and not using satisfaction interchangeably with engagement), measuring and surveying on employee satisfaction can also be a useful tool. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on one such valuable survey on employee satisfaction as conducted by the Conference Board. As the WSJ explains: “The survey, which the Conference Board has conducted every year since 1987, bears some resemblance to the ‘employee engagement’ surveys that companies and polling firms engage in regularly these days. The Board distinguishes its target by saying that satisfaction is focused instead on more measurable components such as pay and benefits and ‘does not explore the full range of emotional and behavioral ways employees interact with their workplaces.’” That’s a good distinction between satisfaction and engagement, which also weighs how well employees understand what is needed from them to achieve strategic goals and their willingness to give discretionary effort to achieve it. Satisfaction measures none of this, reporting instead on just that – employee satisfaction. Read Irvine’s full post at here.