Targeting the Swing Voters June 09, 2008 Workplace satisfaction is up, thanks to vaguely more contented employees
By Alex Palmer
How do you keep a satisfied workforce? You target the swing voters, according to The Beacon Group, a Toronto-based professional services firm. The group released the results of its annual employee satisfaction survey on March 19, reporting that workplace satisfaction was higher in 2007 than it has been in half a decade, going from 54 percent in 2002 to 60 percent in 2007.
This positive uptick is coming primarily from slight but significant shifts in the 31,000 North American employees surveyed. Rating their level of satisfaction from 1-4 on 12 areas of workplace satisfaction, including sense of belonging and performance feedback, the respondents giving the low score of 1 remain consistent from year to year, while those choosing 3s or 4s increase as 2s decrease.
"To me the most dramatic thing in the data is that this solid ten percent of disgruntled [employees] hasn't budged and we find that in any organization that core percent is there," says Doug Williamson, The Beacon Group CEO. "The key to employee satisfaction and engagement is: how can you tease out, and gain the commitment of, the swing voters?"
The results indicate that companies are doing a better job of reaching employees who may not be highly enthusiastic about their job, yet have not completely soured on it.
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