How to Measure Employee Satisfaction and Gain Invaluable Feedback

Katie Liston

Employee Feedback

Want to create a happy, productive workplace? Then you need to know how to measure employee satisfaction. This post will help you do just that.

When Buffer learned that its employees found it difficult to truly disconnect while teammates were still online, the company came to a bold conclusion: it needed to shut down.

Buffer employees across the globe are off work simultaneously for nine full days in December, as well as for several three-day weekends throughout the year, so they don’t feel pressured to work.

What’s most remarkable about Buffer’s move, though, isn’t the time off — it’s the fact that employees didn’t even have to ask for it. Buffer regularly measures employee satisfaction to take a “pulse survey” on team happiness, and when it sees opportunities to boost company morale, it takes action.

When you know how your employees feel you can motivate them more effectively. You can easily measure employee satisfaction as part of your internal communications strategy with ContactMonkey. Collect employee feedback in real time via surveys, anonymous comments, emoji reactions, and more. Book a free demo to see how ContactMonkey boosts employee engagement.

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What Is Employee Satisfaction and Why Should You Measure it?

Employee satisfaction refers to how happy a worker is with their job, and it can mean different things to different employees. For some, it may involve being challenged or emotionally connected to their work, while for others, it could mean doing the bare minimum to collect a paycheck.

And employee satisfaction is different from employee engagement, which involves employees’ motivation to help their companies achieve their goals. A good way to find what motivates your employees is to conduct an employee motivation survey.

Engagement is closely tied to output, and we’ve got great ideas for improving employee engagement.

Employee satisfaction is an important employee happiness metric for gauging the overall health of the workplace. When it’s high, there are numerous benefits for the business and its workers, including improved company culture, higher productivity, greater profits, increased employee retention, and even better employer branding. When it’s low — and currently, only 45% of American workers say they’re satisfied or extremely satisfied with their jobs — employee turnover increases, and productivity and profits drop.

That’s why it’s imperative that companies not only know how to measure employee satisfaction but also regularly assess it.

How to Measure Employee Satisfaction: 3 Effective Ways

There are numerous ways to measure employee satisfaction. Select the methods that are best for your business and make them an integral part of your company culture. This creates an environment where employees want to do their best work.

1. Have one-on-one conversations

Technology has enabled us to submit employee-satisfaction feedback through tools like email, Slack, and instant messages. But face-to-face talks with employees are invaluable because they allow for true two-way communication and enable managers to delve deeper into topics and develop a rapport with co-workers.

To get the most out of these chats, you can suggest that you both come with discussion points, or create a formal discussion structure. For example, a manager could ask the employee to come prepared to talk about a recent win, as well as a recent challenge.

You can cover a variety of topics during these regular talks, but if you have an eye on how to measure employee satisfaction, it’s important for managers to ask the right questions. Consider adding these seven job-satisfaction questions to your agenda.

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2. Conduct surveys

It can be difficult for employees to express themselves honestly face-to-face with a manager, so soliciting anonymous feedback via surveys can be incredibly valuable.

The depth and length of surveys can vary based on your company’s needs. They may be quick, one-question check-ins featured in the regular employee newsletter or more comprehensive questionnaires administered a few times a year.

Regular surveys are an especially useful employee newsletter idea for remote teams.

There’s no shortage of ways to measure employee satisfaction. But one of the most popular by far is the Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS). What is eNPS? It is metric that reveals how workers feel about the company. It’s calculated by asking employees a single question: On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this organization as a place to work?

Screenshot of employee net promoter score (eNPS) survey embedded within a newsletter using ContactMonkey's email template builder.

Employees’ responses are then grouped into one of three categories:

  • Promoters: People who ranked the company with a 9 or 10 can shed light on what the business is doing right.
  • Passives: Workers who gave the company a score of 7 or 8 don’t feel strongly either way.
  • Detractors: Employees who responded with a 6 or below are dissatisfied and can provide feedback about how the company can improve.

To calculate your organization’s eNPS, simply subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.

Screenshot of employee net promoter score (eNPS) survey results within ContactMonkey's email template builder.

ContactMonkey makes it easy to gather useful employee feedback with your internal communications by enabling you to embed star ratings, emoji reactions like buttons, and more directly into company messages. It’ll even do the work of calculating the eNPS for you.

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Not sure what questions to ask your employees? You can use ContactMonkey’s OpenAI ChatGPT integration to generate survey questions for your employees. Simply describe the kind of data you want to collect, and let our AI integration generate example questions for you to edit and use.

3. Set up a ‘suggestion box’

Although 93% of North American employees make regular suggestions to management, only 39% of businesses actually have processes in place to accept and address these ideas. But there’s a simple fix: Install a suggestion box in the office—or establish a virtual one—so employees can voice their opinions and share feedback anonymously.

Screenshot of electronic employee suggestion box.

It’s also useful to allow employees to provide attributed feedback, though, if they feel comfortable.

If your suggestion box not generating the engagement you expected? Maybe you need to feature it more prominently in your internal communications. Using ContactMonkey’s click maps feature, you can see how your employees are engaging with your email design to help you understand how to get your employees to notice the information you want them to:

ContactMonkey clickmap heatmap for email analytics and employee safety survey analytics

Organizations can take the idea of the suggestion box a step further by implementing continuous improvement software. This type of program sends regular requests for suggestions, collects employee feedback, and tracks progress. So, not only does it provide a great way to measure employee satisfaction, but it also creates a company culture of continual improvement.

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How to Measure Employee Satisfaction with ContactMonkey

ContactMonkey does much more than just streamline communications; it also makes it easy for organizations to gather feedback and measure employee satisfaction.

With ContactMonkey’s drag-and-drop email template builder, you can add pulse survey questions, emoji reactions, comment fields, and more directly into emails. This allows employees to quickly and anonymously weigh in on everything from what they think of the newsletter to how satisfied they are with their jobs and the company itself.

Screenshot of emoji reaction options within ContactMonkey's email template builder.

In other words, it transforms newsletters and other company messaging into two-way communication channels and provides a simple and effective way to tap into what employees are really thinking and feeling.

If your company has internal or external regulations around email privacy, you can collect anonymous individual email metrics using ContactMonkey. Easily analyze your email performance while maintaining your employees’ privacy with anonymous email tracking.

Learn more about how ContactMonkey can help you measure employee satisfaction by booking a free demo.

Measuring Employee Satisfaction Is Just the Beginning

Knowing how to measure employee satisfaction is undeniably important in establishing a healthy workplace. Take a pulse on how workers feel about the company and their role within it allows organizations to take steps to increase employee engagement, which improves company culture, productivity, and profits.

Also, research shows that informed employees are happy employees. That’s why it’s essential for internal communications teams to ensure that workers regularly receive and understand company information.

And since email is the most popular form of internal communication, according to the Global State of Internal Communications 2020 Report, make sure your team is engaging with newsletters and other company messaging. ContactMonkey makes this easy with a wealth of data that enables you to track opens, clicks, survey responses, and more.

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It’s a breeze to measure employee satisfaction with ContactMonkey. Book a personalized demo and learn how to measure employee satisfaction — and more!

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