Employee Satisfaction - A critical perspective

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Whom does this apply: This article is based on research on both manufacturing and service industry and common organizational hierarchical  structure:

In this structure some of the most common scenarios most organizations face are:

• General Employees reports to managers and the managers reports to Directors. Director (Level 1) is solely dependant on manager (Level 2) for feedback on employee satisfaction and empowers managers (Level 2 and 3) to take serious decisions for Level 4. There may be usual Employee Feedback organized through either internal or external system yearly.
• No open door policy.
• Decisions are taken mostly based on personal preference.
• Decisions are taken based on minimal communication or unknowingly ignoring benefit to the stake holders.

Problems with this system and their impacts:

• Level 1 would have possibility of faulty feedbacks on frontline employees.
  • This will lead to politics in the organizations leading to favoritism while promoting employees (in some organizations it is known as buddy promotion culture). This way, the true and talented employees will be barred from any improvements within organization and the company will not be benefited from level of employee expertise and will not achieve the expected growth or a healthy work culture.
  • Injustice will occur to talented and honest employees by the immediate supervisors as a result of personal conflict which is quite usual to happen from time to time. These kind of corporate torments usually are not revealed to the senior management by the victims in order to save themselves from embarrassments, harassments or even termination on sublime unlawful grounds that is hard to prove.
    • In this situation either employee will remain silent to the authorities but chat with colleagues they trust and eventually spread out the words around the company.
    • Or, if they get opportunities either from other departments/ managers or even external opportunities, they will quit. Generally speaking, a lot of managers think that internally happening employee churn reflects healthy promoting environment. But, in the real world, some or lot of these internal moves are the results of hidden counterproductive corporate activity.
• In strategic decision making, Level 1 takes decision with Level 2, but the primary impact of the decision involves Level 3 and Level 4. This happens when Level 1 assumes that Level 2 has sufficient knowledge of the impact scenarios of the project.
  • As a result, project becomes a failure because of improper planning and lack of expert inputs from Level 4.
  • Implementation of projects takes longer than expected time due to errors resulting from decisions which did not involve Level 4. As a result, Level 4 has to exponentially increase the work effort and frustration rises high.

Note on the Yearly Employee Feedback: This will never be a complete true reflection of employee opinion.

• A good percentage of employees will always fear to be identified even if the employee survey is done via a third party research company.
• Reasons of dissatisfaction occur round the year and may get suppressed through different political instruments as it occurs. Employees will tend not to mention those at the time of yearly survey but the dissatisfaction on injustice will always remain in mind.
• A lot of companies/ managers/ supervisors start offering special treats to the employees in order to create a temporary satisfactory illusion in employee’s mind and it sometimes works well. But they realize the truth after the survey is over and the environment takes its previous shape.

Solution and Recommendation:

It is never too late to take the right decision.

• Start being involved with all levels of employees formally or if possible, informally. It is healthy for all levels of stuff in the company.
• Create an open door policy for all levels irrespective of the position.
• Manage your time effectively so that you have time speak to any employee whenever you are approached.
• Never be proud of your position. Respect others not just with politeness but also with appropriate actions that would benefit your colleagues. An honest employee would always appreciate a real help and not a fake smile. 
• Build talents within before thinking about external hiring. This will truly prove your leadership skills. Be as honest as possible.
• Learn to educate any of your employees you come across with your knowledge and also learn from them. You will be surprised how much knowledge you will be able to gain from Juniors.
• Frontline employees are your true source of information about your company. The amount of information they can produce, you will be able build 40% of your SWOT analysis based on that. In my marketing career, any new company I joined, my primary source of information and my true friends were the Peons who usually makes coffee for me or serve breakfast or even organize my paperworks.
• Avoid taking resort to politics. It never does any long term good to oneself or the organization. Business survives through employee strengths and satisfactions. Based on an Ipsos-Reid survey that was published by RBC in November 2007, 36% of Canadian employees complained about office politics affecting their productivity. This number of survey respondents was only 19% just a decade ago boosting counterproductivity.  

End Note: Due to privacy law and employee confidentiality, unfortunately, I will be unable to provide any specifics on the organizations/employees, thereby making it a generic study.

I am sure, we all know, some or all of the problem components are present in a lot of organizations. Not many employees we would find to be bold enough to come forward and discuss the issue in fear of losing job, which I do not blame them for.

Objective of my article is to draw attention of the respective authorities on the possibilities of these problems happening in their own organizations, therefore, to build necessary preventative mechanism and make possibilities to strive for Employee Satisfaction awards. Ultimately it's the employee who would take the business to the next stage of the success.