Employee Satisfaction and Choosing Employers: A key consideration in choosing employers is employee satisfaction at each firm under consideration.
Methods for Rating Employee Satisfaction:
- Firsthand experience with the firm in question
- Consulting reliable and candid sources with such experience through networking
- Evaluating surveys of the best companies to work for in various business publications
Employee Length of Service: Financial Times jobs and careers columnist Lucy Kellaway ("My measure of a good employer is better than Botox," 1/31/2011) suggests that the simplest and most reliable metric for rating employee satisfaction is how long people stay with the company. Alternatively, employee turnover statistics might be used as a proxy for average length of service, though Kellaway does not mention this. Kellaway's theory is that unhappy employees will move elsewhere, while satisfied employees will stay. The longer they stay, the more satisfied they must be.
Kellaway also suggests two adjustments:
- Remove employees who leave within their first two years from the stats, to adjust for people who were poor fits and habitual job hoppers
- Treat companies with any history of involuntary layoffs as bad places to work
Shortcomings of Length of Service: While short average length of service (or high employee turnover) might be reliable indicators of low employee satisfaction, the converse is not necessarily true. That is, long average length of service (or low employee turnover) might reflect poor job prospects and/or limited employment opportunities where the company operates. Additionally, employees generally dissatisfied with their jobs might be persuaded to stay if the company offers marginally better pay and benefits (especially health benefits) than competing employers in the area.
