3 Obstacles To Employee Satisfaction And How To Overcome Them In The New Year

Written by: Delanie Jooste, Executive Contributor

Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.

Exit interviews are valuable conversations that can be the source of valuable insights to managers and organisations. Here are three key obstacles that hinder employee satisfaction that I’ve noticed during recent exit interviews and a few questions to explore with your team that will allow you to overcome them. 

The three obstacles that contribute to lowering employee satisfaction include:

• Insufficient feedback,

• Unclear roles and responsibilities,

• Unilateral decision-making.

These obstacles arose from conversations with highly educated and dynamic millennials, it became apparent that the challenges extend beyond generational lines.

If you are open to reflecting on your leadership style and employee relationships and curious about overcoming simple obstacles and retaining top talent (and you have a good sense of humour), please continue reading.

Obstacle 1. The illusion of feedback – How often is really enough?

We take in nourishment daily and depending on the amount of fibre in our diet and regular intake of fluids, we discard waste frequently. It’s part of a natural flow of life and yet, ironically, we stay committed to the constipated process of giving performance feedback few are far between. Those annual, or even bi-annual conversations that both manager and employee dread most of the time. Formal performance feedback conversations might have their time and place, but what happens between those conversations?

Managers, it’s not about you.

It is important to remember that the level of satisfaction with the quality (depth and clarity) and quantity (frequency) of effective feedback is determined by the employee. Having a clear understanding of their needs and requirements will allow managers insight into their teams’ perceptions and true satisfaction about this topic. 

Set the stage.

Receiving feedback on your ability to give feedback as a manager might put some employees in a position where they must overcome the discomfort of ‘giving feedback to their manager’ – cultivating that level of trust and psychological safety requires time and effort to have impactful conversations.

• What can you do or say to make your team feel comfortable and safe to share their perceptions and collaborate on designing a new way of working together?

Here are some important questions that will facilitate conversations around the quality and quantity of feedback.

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with the quality (depth and clarity) of feedback?

  • What can we do to improve the quality of feedback conversations?

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with the frequency of feedback?

  • What would a more ideal frequency be?

• How do you prefer to get feedback – in-person conversations, a virtual call, a bullet point email or a quick telephone call?

• What can we do more to make open and honest feedback the norm?

• What must we stop doing to make open and honest feedback the norm?

Obstacle 2. Correlate and clarify roles and responsibilities – How can you get on the same page?

“Clear is kind” – Prof. Brené Brown. Cut the confusion and avoid situations where your team wonders if what they’re doing aligns with what you think they’re doing. Uncertainty causes fear which diminishes creative thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving abilities. Again, the perception of the clarity of roles and responsibilities remains in the eye of the beholder.

Here are some important questions that will facilitate conversations around role clarification:

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how clear are you on your role and responsibilities?

  • In which areas of your roles and responsibilities would you like more clarity?

• What can we do more to improve clarity?

• What must we stop doing to improve clarity?

Obstacle 3. Don't dunning-kruger, go gemba!

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people, managers, in this case, overestimate their abilities in a particular domain. In some of the exit interviews, it became apparent that senior management often suffers from this effect when making important decisions without consulting with the people who will be directly impacted by these decisions. Integrating subject matter expertise on all levels of the organisation just makes sense. This principle is illustrated by Gemba which is a fundamental principle in Lean Management principle. It emphasizes the importance of direct observation and understanding the reality of the work environment and the people doing it which will lead to more well-rounded and considered decision-making and buy-in in teams.

How can you integrate these principles to facilitate integrated decision-making in your team:

• Ensure that all parties impacted by decisions and changes in the organisation offer their perspectives, expertise, ideas and suggestions.

• Observe processes to understand what practically takes place.

• Most importantly, communicate the final reasoning for decisions to avoid uncertainty and assumptions.

George Bernard Shaw said: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”. May these key learnings offer some aspects to proactively reflect on and discuss with your team to ensure that employee satisfaction with feedback, clarity and decision-making is not only reserved for exit interviews.

Click here to read more about unlocking your teams’ full potential with practical tips for cultivating a growth mindset and you can also read more about cultivating healthy teams by shedding light on silent expectations – click here.

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Delanie Jooste, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine

I am a Certified Integral Coach through New Ventures West and the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business. I am also a passionate Certified Enneagram Practitioner through Integrative Enneagram Solutions and run my own Consulting Business and Coaching Practice. I am creative and analytical and incorporate LEAN principles with Positive, Conversational and Emotional Intelligence concepts in Team and Leadership Development Programmes which integrate coaching, training and development initiatives to build the systems, skills, competencies and habits that allow teams and individuals to develop agency, expand their perspective and increase their capacity to achieve their desired outcomes.