THE STATE OF EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION

"Loyalty requires building a partnership between management and employees."

With these objectives, performance reviews can make an important and ongoing contribution to furthering each employee's career.

Related to the role of performance reviews, another important influence on employee satisfaction is a sense of being led by capable management, with both immediate supervisors and senior management having a clear sense of direction for the organization. One of the forces that disconnects employees from their companies is management's ever-changing corporate focus. By introducing yet another corporate initiative, employees come to question the credibility of management and the focus of the company. They begin to wonder what the company stands for, where it's going, and if the latest initiative is yet another "here today, gone tomorrow" program.

Employees are therefore skeptical at best - and cynical at worst - about their company's perpetually shifting focus. Without a constant, long-term strategic vision, organizations risk confusing, bewildering, depressing and disconnecting with their employees. Within an environment of ever-changing focus, employees find it hard to see a strong link between their role and the company's core purpose. Alternatively, communicating a company's shared vision and establishing a shared mission with employees are important means of enhancing employee commitment. Employees feel a stronger sense of job satisfaction when they agree with the strategic decisions, especially when they are involved in developing the strategic direction.

In addition to establishing and communicating a strategic vision for the company, loyalty also requires building a partnership between management and employees and creating an environment of mutual respect, involvement and open communication. Maintaining open lines of communication with employees will enable senior management to keep up with their changing needs into the future.

Recent studies have shown that managers, whether front-line supervisors, project leaders, team captains or senior management, actually have more power than anyone else to reduce unwanted employee turnover because the most important factors driving employee satisfaction and commitment are largely within the direct manager's control. These include providing recognition and feedback regularly, offering opportunities to learn and grow, helping to ensure fair compensation reflecting an employee's contributions and value to the organization, fostering a good work environment, and above all, recognizing and respecting the uniqueness of each employee's competencies, needs, desires and working style.

At the supervisory level, though, managers also need to strike the right balance of using a more employee-centered leadership style, under which their employees are welcome to participate in making decisions (i.e., "leadership through collaboration"), but without going so far as to abdicate responsibility for decision-making. When the participatory approach becomes excessive, employees may feel that they are being given more responsibility than their positions should require and, thus, can feel overworked or underpaid for the work expected.

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