Simple idea and severe development: satisfaction and engagement

People often talk about satisfaction at work or about being engaged in work. People often understand satisfaction as coming from cirumstances, like the sallary, the social bond with coworkers or the possibilities of development.

Engagement seems to be connected to satisfaction, maybe influenced by satisfaction. Engagement is often understood as the willingness to go the extra-mile.

Employees judge themselves retrospectively. Employers judge their employees based on evaluations of satisfaction and engagement. Employees might think, that lower satisfaction and engagement are suggesting to change the company, ask for changes etc.. Employers might see indicators of lower loyality, lower willingness to be part of success of the company etc.

Often wrong

Satisfaction and engagement seem to be central indicators of the employee-work relations, but at the same time, they are not defined precise enough in a common sense. They are not defined precise enough in order to develop mechanisms, which will increase both, satsisfaction and engagement. Such mechanisms are often assumed to be sallary increases. Both employees and employers assume, that increasing sallaries will improve satisfaction and engagement. What if satisfaction and engagement are not understood properly and are ill-defined, therefore the motivational constructs, which should increase them, lead to positive effects only in short-term or to negative effects in long-term?

So what is engagement? There are different approaches to the concept.

The first approach defines engagement as identification with work. It depends on individual attributes, work circumstances and social context factors. Factors such as age, need for development, autonomy at work and in decision making, difficulty in task performing, group work or independent work may have an impact on engagement.

The second approach defines engagement as some kind of involvement. This involvement energizes the person and leads to action taking, which on the other hand leads to personal and professional fulfillment. Such energization on the other hand has it’s risks. When becoming extreme, it might lead to professional burnouts.

The third approach defines engagement as a positive cognitive perception of work and a positive cognitive leaning towards work. This in long-term leads to a general fulfillment.

Engagement understood within the three concepts above involves sub-concepts, such as vigor (which equals high energy and willingness to work), dedication (which equals 100% sensefullnes based on work) and absorption (which is kind of forgetting the world around, while at work).

Engagement in the longrun leads to taking over greater responsibility in shaping the organization. Engaged employees do their job conscientiously and voluntarily provide more input and energy to the outcomes of a company. At the same time, engaged employees have a positive effect on co-workers, increasing their engagement.

In general satisfaction is understood as a set of attitudes and feelings, both negative and positive for a given work (easier defined: the degree to which an employee likes or dislikes his or her job). Formerly, satisfaction was understood as a measure of satisfied physical and psychological needs.

More recently, satisisfaction is understood as the outcome of superior cognitive processes. Work and work experience in the eyes of a satisfied employee, is perceived as emotional, positive and pleasant.

Similar, to engagement, which is consists of sub-elements, satisfaction can be understood as a global concept as well as a detailed concept consisting of sub-concepts.

From another point of view, the detailled approach defines satisfaction as the thoughts, feelings and behaviors, that employees have about certain sub-aspects of their work.

Work satisfaction consists of three components: the affective component, the cognitive component and the behavioral component. The affective component presents feelings, emotions and attitudes towards work. The cognitive component describes the rational beliefs about the work situation (Work can be interesting, motivating, attracting, but also hard and difficult). The behavioral component descibes tendencies to display certain behaviors at work: Such as being accurate to timings, promoting good opinions about the employer, staying after hours.

Engagement at work might be considered as a motivational construct concerning work itself. Satisfaction on the other hand might be seen as a positive reactive state, after engagement has been increased.

So the assumptions are not directly confirming or might even contradict the general assumption, that satisfaction increases engagement. This leads to the suggestion, that methods should not aim at increasing satisfaction, but at increasing engagement directly. One could understand this better this way:

Engagement leads to enthusiasm, energization and mobilization.

Satisfaction leads to higher satisfaction and comfort, which might in a worse case scenario lead to less energization and mobilization.

Employees are more willing to devote more time to their work and their company, when they become more engaged. Employees then are perceiving their ability to fulfill essential needs at work and private life as very high. As an employer: if you perceive your ability to work properly for you as well as for your employee as high, you will engage more and more. Increasing engagement therefore is the way to increase and maintain satisfaction.

Newer studies underline the importance of both concepts in impacting each other.

On this basis, it can be concluded, that employers should take care of both aspects among their employees. Both satisfaction and engagement should be cared of, as they are mutually affecting each other and bringing future benefits to the functioning of companies.

Salary as the main method for increasing satisfaction and engagement is not effective, as assumed. Many studies indicate, that salary does not change the long term effects on both scales. Even employees, who were unsatisfied with benefits and salary, were not less satisfied, than co-workers. Other aspects, such as growth-potential, involvement and engagement in company decision making, supervision and mentor-programms and transparency were more directly connected to overall satisfaction.

From a employer-perspective, there are certain mechanisms, which could increase both engagement and satisfaction. Salary and benefit is one component, but should be used strategically.

Create transparent policies and processes: Every employee engaged, should have insights on why and how things are working and progressing, especially if it connects directly with their work

Create an environment of support: Every employee needs the feeling of being supported, if necessary, while not developing the feeling of control. The rule should be: As much support as necessary, as little control as possible.

Create a view, which allows development and goal pursuing: Employees should have the possibility to aim at certain target states at work.

Create a system, where the employee decides: Let the employee decide, if somehow possible. Involvement in decision making increases capabilties, work ressources and increases the speed of the learning curve. A good rule might be: An effective leader is the one, which makes the followers think “they achieved something by themselves, only”.

Create a salary and benefits programm, that is not predictable but transparent: Provide increases and benefits, not on a regular basis, but on a irregular, but understandable way as a gratification for past achievement and a incentive for future great behaviors.

Create jobs within your company with end-2-end responsibility: The tasks an employee is conducting, should include the planning and decision making as well as the finishing till the end-product.

Create jobs within your compamy with verticle and horizontal challenges: vertical challenges are tasks from higher hierarchy-levels. horizontal challenges include tasks on new topics.

From a perspective as an employee, the major suggestion would be to concentrate on building own engagement. Set own goals, try to fulfill tasks as good as possible. Try to deliver results. Do not look at satisfaction in short-term. To be satisfied is – in my opinion – a long-term concept and not the main product, but a by-product of proper work itself.

Try to take over responsibility and be autonomous: Try to find tasks which imply high responsibility and solve them by yourself.

Try to always set a higher goal or undertake a more difficult journey / task: Do not rest based on satisfying results. Aim higher, try to get a little bit more out of the next adventure.

Try to not delegate decision making to others: Do not seek for the decisions of others, e.g. a husband, a wife or a supervisor. At least try to evaluate possible decisions by yourself and then seek advice.

Try to undertake difficult tasks: task should be as difficult as possible, while the solution should be as easy as necessary in order to be able to achieve it.

Try to grow in teamwork: Look out for tasks, where shared ressources and common goals might lead to higher positive outcomes for you and the group.