As small business owners, it’s great to get a little good news, especially now. And the good news is: most of your employees are satisfied.
In fact, 65.5% of small business employees in a recent survey by Zoho reported they have high satisfaction with the work they do. And 68.4% say their jobs provide them with meaningful work.
Want even more good news? About 73% of employees overall find a sense of purpose in their work.
What this demonstrates is that most workers are with you for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is how the job makes them feel inside. They are not just there for a paycheck, but because they get inner satisfaction from the work you provide.
Those are statistics are a reality check — in a positive way. We so often see TV and films presenting disgruntled employees, that we forget the real world. The study reflects satisfied employees who largely feel a sense of purpose, not unhappiness.
In today’s world the employee chooses the employer as much as the other way around. If a person chooses to work with you, then the company that you must be doing something right.
The Beagle Research Group conducted the study in April 2020 on behalf of Zoho. The study surveyed 509 employees in small and large businesses and various industries in North America.
The study gathered the data during the uncertainty and fear of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet workers, many of whom overnight began working remotely from their kitchen tables or bedrooms, seem to have adapted because of their employers’ culture and factors that drive internal satisfaction. Many gave high marks to their employers in the areas of goal setting and alignment. Even with all the disruption, the study shows employees feel satisfied, involved and engaged.
However, it’s not all roses. There’s room for improvement in the area of technology. More than half (56%) of small business employees say their computer systems are not conducive to getting the job done when working remotely. In other words, employees generally feel satisfied and engaged. But when working remotely they feel their technology doesn’t support their work as well as it could.
“With online tools accessible from anywhere, including your home, the right tools have to be made available for employees to be productive. Unfortunately, as the survey finds, this is not currently the case. This has to change for employees to be successful,” said Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist at Zoho.
Adds Denis Pombriant, Managing Principal at Beagle Research and author of the report, “If companies want to improve their performance, they should look first at the technology systems that support their primary business activities.”
You can see the survey results at a public dashboard set up by Zoho using its Zoho Analytics product.
Zoho Corporation is a technology company with over 50 million users for its 45 software products and apps.
Zoho has an all-in-one offering, Zoho One, that is like an operating system for your business. It covers everything from sales, marketing, customer support, accounting, billing, project management and much more. It consists of modular apps. This means you can turn on one app or product at a time, as you need them, or you can continue using some third party apps if you don’t want to switch.
Zoho also offers a platform designed specifically for remote workers, called Zoho Remotely.
Zoho has 8,000 employees and is headquartered in Austin, Texas, with international headquarters in Chennai, India. Additional offices are in Japan, China, Singapore, Mexico, Australia, the Netherlands, and the United Arab Emirates.
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