There’s a disturbing trend in the American workplace: Employers don’t understand what motivates and satisfies their employees, and that leads to poor performance, disengagement and high turnover rates, according to the Answers.com 2014 American Employee Study.
Not only that, but employers are not doing nearly enough to rectify the situation, says Eric Feinberg, senior director, product strategy, for Answers Cloud Services. “Improving employee satisfaction leads to desirable employee behaviors, such as recommending the company to others, supporting its products and satisfying its customers. Considering the high cost of replacing employees — anywhere from a fifth to 200 percent of the person’s salary — a true commitment to measuring and improving the employee experience should be an operational imperative for American employers,” he says.
Answers.com surveyed 4,115 American employees in the fall of 2014, asking both specific questions about their engagement, availability of training and their company’s commitment to understanding their career goals as well as rating their general job satisfaction on a 0-100 point scale.
By understanding how and which aspects of satisfaction and engagement impact specific behaviors, organizations can effectively design employee initiatives that will achieve measurable, positive business outcomes, says Feinberg. Here are the top nine most critical findings from the survey.