Current challenges such as a shortage of skilled workers, high turnover rates and the „Great Resignation” show that, particularly in the knowledge society, good employees are becoming an increasingly decisive competitive factor! But they are also becoming increasingly important in social professions, in crafts, or in production. While routine tasks can be increasingly automated, human skills such as empathy, flexibility, or innovation and creativity are coming to the fore.
However, these skills can hardly be demanded, ordered, or activated through rewards. Instead, what is needed above all is permanently satisfied employees! For example, a meta-study in the Harvard Business Review shows that highly satisfied employees are 31% more productive, 30% more creative, and 37% more successful than less satisfied comparison persons!
Satisfied employees are 31% more productive, 30% more creative and 37% more successful
Lyubomirsky, King & Diener, Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success?, Psychological Bulletin, 2005
Yet despite years of investment in attractive offices, innovative training courses, team-building events and numerous extra benefits, this important factor is rarely achieved in reality. Year after year, for example, Gallup's engagement index shows that the majority of employees are merely working to rule or have already resigned inwardly. According to recent surveys in Germany, only 15% of employees are satisfied and motivated! So how can employee motivation and performance be sustainably increased through greater satisfaction?
Increasing employee satisfaction and performance through new ways of working
In most cases, the general conditions are not to blame, at least not in Germany. Companies in this country rightly like to point to above-average salaries, many vacation days, and, more recently, even flexible home office options. However, such general conditions have now become hygiene factors, which are simply expected by most talents, but do not ensure permanently higher satisfaction or motivation.
Instead, the lever lies in the design of the work per se, which must be tailored to the needs of the employees - and not standardized or done in the way „it has always been done.“ For such an active design, seven relevant dimensions can be defined from research, in which working methods can be reviewed and, if necessary, innovated in order to permanently increase employee satisfaction and performance (see graphic).
