A healthy work environment ensures continuous productivity and workflow from organizations employees and also provides more accurate forecasts with regard to future planning. This proved to be extremely beneficial in avoiding unauthorized absences and reduced the attrition rate, be it planned or spontaneous. Based on the analysis of the HR Department, they then decide on the immediate changes or re-calibration that needs to be implemented to improve the overall working environment. Remember that a satisfied worker immensely enjoys fulfilling their duties without the need to be coaxed or reminded and will influence other workers by spreading the positivity they feels on that day. On the other hand, an unhappy employee will seldom be productive, can damage your company branding by being unprofessional to clients and customers as well as influence other employees within his or her department to feel negative as they do. Negativity is truly contagious and can have a domino effect on any environment and should be avoided. There are a multitude of aspects that can be a factor in influencing ones job disposition and this is only one of them, the personal or behavioral aspect.

Before delving into redefining employee satisfaction surveys, employee satisfaction in itself needs to be redefined. Employee satisfaction changes as the world changes and is greatly influenced by the trends in lifestyle and technology. The key is defining expectations. What does today's generation expect of a company versus the expectations of the older generation? For instance, a twenty one year old employee cares more about a company providing him a top of the line laptop and smart phone to do his job whereas a fifty year old employee will put more weight into retirement benefits and could not care less about new technology. In the same manner, the older generation may more easily satisfied with their current job roles compared to the younger generation over eager to climb the corporate ladder.

Also determine what the motivations for each employee is but this is a more challenging task than expectations because motivations rely solely on influences such as growth and development in their younger years, current financial status, current marital status and associations. Understanding what motivates an employee has to be done on an entirely personal level through employee engagement.

There are a multitude of factors that determine employee satisfaction at the current marketplace. Job security is ranked as the most important and with just cause as many have experienced significant cuts on salary and layoffs. Many employees believe that their job is at risk and these are a mass of people that you will not get loyalty out of, out of necessity, they will most likely hunt for other jobs while in your employment. It is important for companies to be transparent with decisions like these. It is only ethical that you set expectations correctly. If a company is sure of its current financial standing, communicate this to employees, this will make them more secure about their jobs. If a company is planning some layoffs, communicate this with them too, they will highly appreciate it if they are able to prepare for this likely event months ahead of time.

With the examples and situations enumerated and above do you feel that serving your entire workforce with only one survey will yield measurable results? Surveys do not have to be standard and should even be segregated to match the expectations of each generation. This is the only way to retrieve measurable results from your employee satisfaction surveys and can prove invaluable to HR management as it provides more accurate data. The changes improved by this data are constant productivity, reduction in rehiring costs and lower employee attrition, gaining employee confidence, loyalty and retention, a good company reputation to external forces, better acquisition of top talent, an enjoyable working environment, good interpersonal skills and assured return on investment.

Many companies make the gravest mistake in ignoring the importance of employee surveys. These companies will remain small and will never expand because they fail to realize that employees are the one true tangible asset that spurs success. A company is not a company without its people.