How to Improve Employee Satisfaction and Lifetime Loyalty

The success of your business depends on having a motivated workforce. Properly motivated employees do their job better and achieve a higher level of performance. The right employee strategies can encourage loyalty, dedication and self awareness in the pursuit of excellence. In contrast, lack of employee loyalty will cost your company money, time and lost customers. Employee loyalty can best be defined as employees dedicated to the success of the organization. To be successful, employers should focus on improving employee satisfaction and lifetime loyalty.

Employees recommend your organization to prospective customers and recruit new employees by word of mouth. The employees' satisfaction level with their current job may determine if they are actively seeking employee outside your organization. Depending on your business and industry, lack of employee satisfaction can lead to talks of bringing in a union.

The question for management is what actions result in the best results for long-term employee satisfaction. Once a company is competitive in the market with wages and benefits, what will stimulate the employee to stay with your company or to be productive? I would respond to this by being creative at recognizing and rewarding your employees that go beyond what is expected.

The following is a list of potential options to help establish a lifetime of loyalty from your employees. You should use the list as a starting point and adapt what best suites the interest of your workforce.

* Free valet parking for expecting mothers in their third trimester of pregnancy. If you are a large organization that has parking a distance from your building, this is truly a statement that says we care about our employees. Who isn't happy for expectant mothers? The loyalty you gain from this will last a lifetime.

* Develop an employee emergency fund that will be used to help employees and their families in time of need. You will use this when an employee is affected by unforeseen circumstances such as a house fire, no electricity for an extended period of time, etc. Other employees may want to donate to this fund.

* Arrange to offer concierge services provided by a third party. The idea here is to provide convenience to the employee while maintaining their focus on their job functions. Services could include dry cleaning, oil changes, etc. Rather than worry about picking up the dry cleaning, the employee will have it delivered to their office.

* Create a program to award achievements. This can be based on seniority or personal achievement. Reward your employees when they reach their 5, 10, 20 and more years of service with a service award. Additionally, employees that go the extra mile by achieving a level of certification or additional expertise should be recognized through a formal reward.

* Work with your human resource department to add flexibility to employee work hours. Within a diverse workforce, the more flexibility available the happier your employees will be. For example, can working mothers job share to account for a full-time employee equivalent, or does your business get slow in the summer where mothers can take the summer off to be with their children? The possibilities are endless if you align the employee needs with company expectations.

* Create an employee segmentation process that will serve to guide the career advancements of employees. With today's diverse workforce, one size does not fit all employees. You must work with employees to help them acquire the skills to move forward in their career. A career plan allows the employer to motivate and better understand the aspirations of their employees.

* Create a mechanism where employees can voice their concern to management without any threat of retaliation. If employees perceive something is wrong, then it is their reality. It is important to deal with these issues internally before they become major problems. Many times it is merely a misunderstanding, misperceived judgment or bad management.

Most employers do not understand the importance of an investment in their workforce and the implications of motivating employees to strive for excellence. In a service industry, employees become the face of your business. You definitely want your employs to be positive when recommending your service and you company as a place of employment. To make this happen, employers should seek to reward and recognize employee leadership to motivate their workforce beyond monetary actions.