This is one of those snippets in business news and reports that occasionally surfaces, bobs around and then is overwhelmed by the ‘real’ business issues. Employee satisfaction – translation: people enjoying what they do for living – is the most important business issue. That is how innovation, good service, and organic growth of company happen.
The figures, based on an online survey of 984 people, also suggest that only 43 per cent of people are content with their career progress, while the biggest drop in satisfaction was found to be in the degree of autonomy permitted to staff.
Autonomy – who’d have thunked it?! Joanne Hindle of Unum, the company that did the survey, confirms:
…salary alone is not a sufficient means of addressing employee unhappiness, adding that “benefits, work-life balance, an employee’s sense of autonomy and company culture also have a vital role to play”.
She should know what with her people friendly title of corporate services director…
This goes under the ‘no-shit-Sherlock category’.
Marc Monseau
on Aug 21st, 2007
@ 20:00 pm:
Well, duh…
Thing is, autonomy has loads of benefits.
Not only does it help raise employee morale, but employees who have more autonomy speak more freely and share ideas which results in more creative solutions to problems and — dare I say — innovation.