Top 5 Factors Affecting Job Satisfaction at Remote Work
Keeping your employees satisfied is one of the essential parts of running a business. It serves a distinct purpose — making your company run as efficiently as possible. However, more often than not, it also turns out to be a challenging ordeal — especially when it comes to managing remote employees.
Your staff members might hold diverse values, express contradicting needs, and focus on entirely different aspects of their respectful tasks. As a result, your work environment may become a battleground for competing ideas — and not in a good way. It can lead to chaos, disorganization, and the overall collapse of your work model.
Nevertheless, addressing a few factors impacting employee job satisfaction while working remotely can help you keep things in order. Promoting opportunities for personal growth, providing an inclusive work environment, and implementing fair policies and practices are excellent ways to keep your employees happy. Keeping adequate wages and salaries and providing your employees with the necessary remote work tools enabling work from home can also help you reach this goal.
5 factors that affect job satisfaction
Here are some of the most critical aspects affecting job satisfaction during remote work that every business owner should know about.
1. Advancement opportunities and necessary tools
It’s no secret that people love to feel like they’re moving forward in their lives. They want to have a sense of purpose and see a path ahead of them that will help them grow and develop. If they feel stuck in the same position with no opportunity for growth, they will become discontented and unproductive.
In fact, studies show that a lack of upward mobility is one of the biggest reasons employees leave their jobs. That’s why businesses need to offer advancement opportunities to their workers. This could involve providing training and development programs on new business software tools like C2 Meridian: Business Continuity Management System, offering promotions, or simply giving employees the opportunity to take on new challenges.
As an employer, you also have to provide your workers with all the necessary tools and devices to help them maintain their productivity levels during remote work. If there are any changes in your communication infrastructure, such as using analog FXS vs. FXO ports for switching to VoIP systems, you need to run workshops to explain how your workspace will benefit from them, how new systems work and should be used.
Employees who feel that they are able to grow and develop their skills are more satisfied with their jobs. Providing advancement opportunities along with the necessary tools to work more efficiently helps employees feel valued and that their contributions are important.
2. Inclusive work environment
When employees don’t feel like they belong, they can become resentful and unproductive. This can be due to a variety of factors such as a lack of communication, exclusion from important decisions, or feeling like they are not given the same opportunities as others. Hence, it’s essential for businesses to create a workplace culture that is inclusive and values everyone’s input.
This includes having a positive relationship with co-workers, feeling safe at work, and having adequate workspace and equipment even when working remotely. For this reason, it’s essential to create a sense of community - even if organizing social events isn’t possible at a time, you need to find ways to provide opportunities for employees to get to know each other.
3. Salary and Benefits
If you want to give your employees a reason to be happy with their current jobs, it’s necessary to provide decent salaries and benefits. Employees want to be compensated fairly for the work they do. They also want to have access to benefits that will help them meet their needs both inside and outside of work.
According to the 2018 Indeed survey, over 80% of US employees are unsatisfied with their pay rate. It shows business owners still have a long way to meet their employees’ needs. When asked about salary, employees want to feel they are paid a fair wage for their work and inflation rates.
It’s common for business owners to consider health insurance coverage as something that comes along with the salary package. However, this is not always the case. Many companies don’t offer health insurance to part-time workers, making them less inclined to put all they have into their work. Furthermore, if your employees care for their mental and physical well-being, which has become imperative during the pandemic, you should offer them ample health care options.
In such cases, you have good reasons to consider offering health insurance plans to part-time workers or consultants in order to ensure job satisfaction. Even though this might seem like an expensive endeavor, it can turn out to be highly profitable in the long run. For example, Trust My Paper provided health insurance to its remote workers and saw a significant increase in employee productivity.
Regarding benefits, employees want to know the benefits they receive are valuable. They also want to know that the company is doing its best to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of benefits options. Some common benefits that employees look for are health insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, 401(k), paid vacation days, and sick days.
4. Company Policies and Practices
Your company’s policies and practices can significantly affect job satisfaction. For example, employees might be dissatisfied if their employer doesn’t stand by the company’s values. Similarly, if you don’t offer flexibility in scheduling, which is the most significant benefit of the remote work model, it may make your staff members unhappy.
Employees could also feel dissatisfied when a company has strict policies for employment. If you have strict rules and regulations that your employees must follow, they may not feel comfortable working at your organization. On the other hand, companies with flexible policies and practices are more likely to attract talented individuals. Moreover, they also help create an inclusive work environment by allowing employees to pursue their career goals within their respective departments without any obstacles.
5. Work-Life Balance
This might be the single most crucial aspect affecting job satisfaction. The main reason for this is that it is also among the most relevant factors in employees’ lives.
Having a good work-life balance is one of the most popular ways to enjoy life and feel satisfied with your professional career. It’s an essential part of running a successful business. It allows employees to avoid burnout, which can often result in low productivity, poor performance, and even high staff turnover rates. Moreover, an appropriate balance allows employees to recharge their personal energy, ensuring they return to work refreshed and more motivated.
Today’s professional lives get complicated - remote work starts early and finishes late or doesn’t really finish, making it harder to balance work and home commitments. Providing a working model that takes your employees’ personal needs into account can have a drastic effect.
It doesn’t have to mean actually giving them more days off — although it certainly helps if you do — but rather creating an environment where they can feel comfortable discussing their problems and needs. Flexible working hours and the opportunity to take longers breaks can be enough of a deal-clincher to make your employees happier with their work.
Conclusion
You need to give your employees everything they want — and more. They’re the ones who work hard to help your company succeed. But what is it exactly that you should give or offer to keep them engaged when working from home?
The answer depends on several factors. For example, if you own a small business, you may not have an official HR department. In this case, it’s up to you to develop a compensation program and implement it. You also need to create a comfortable work environment and a positive corporate culture for your employees to feel appreciated.
As for larger companies, take note of the factors outlined above, and make sure that your management staff knows about them as well. Remember that all these elements affect job satisfaction during remote work as well. If you prioritize them and keep your employees happy, you may notice an increase in production and an improved corporate culture overall.