Employee satisfaction is an elusive goal for many organizations. Should employee satisfaction even be a goal at all?

Susan Heathfield in her About.com Guide to Human Resources states, “Employee satisfaction is an outcome… of business practices that empower and enable employees to contribute to the success of the business. I’m not saying that you can treat employees unkindly or with a lack of respect for their dignity and humanity. But, ethical, moral, respectful treatment of employees should be a given in workplaces. This treatment is a given in workplaces that experience escalating business success, serve customers, and retain their best employees.”

Heathfield feels that empowering employees is the way to develop personnel who contribute to the company. This comes from selecting the right people and providing a framework of expectations and goals so that employees know where they are supposed to be going and what they are supposed to be doing.

She states, “It’s not my job to make up for an employee’s lifetime of blah experiences, bad parenting, poor outcomes, half-baked contributions, failure to take responsibility, and unhappy life choices. All I can do is create a respectful work environment in which employees know what is expected and are enabled to do their jobs – successfully and effectively.”

Source: HumanResources.about.com