Employee Satisfaction vs Loyalty

Those that work with satisfaction and loyalty often use the two terms interchangeably. After all, there is logical link between employee satisfaction and employee loyalty. Employees that are more satisfied are likely to stay at their job longer than those that are dissatisfied, and employees that are loyal are more likely to be satisfied employees than employees that are disloyal.

Yet despite that link, the two are not synonymous. When you consider your measurements, make sure you are measuring them both separately in order to get more accurate results.

Employee satisfaction is easier to understand. Employees are either satisfied to some degree or dissatisfied to some degree, and while this is important to distinguish and address, the basics of it are fairly clear.

But what most companies forget is how many different facets of employee loyalty there are. Most companies look at employees as either satisfied/loyal or dissatisfied/disloyal. Loyalty, however, is far more complex.

Other examples of loyalty include: Compensation Loyalty – Compensation is linked to satisfied, but it's possible to be well compensated at a job you are dissatisfied. These employees would be unlikely to leave because they would struggle to get the same pay at another job, but they may still be dissatisfied overall. Economic Loyalty – With the economy struggling, other employees have become loyal because finding a new job in today's economy is considered very difficult.

These employees may also be some degree of satisfied, but regardless their primary source of loyalty is simply concern over the days economy. Ambivalent Loyalty – Some people work to live, rather than live to work. Those individuals may be loyal simply because they're not unsatisfied to a degree that it affects their personal life, but otherwise they have no deep loyalty to the company.

Instead they simply don't have enough passion to get another job. Resume Loyalty – New hires to your company may be looking to improve their resume and plan to stay around until that is complete. Afterward they will leave your company if a good job arises.

These employees are temporarily loyal, as they're remain loyal until they decide the time they needed is done. Financial Incentive Loyalty – Finally, employees that have a financial reason be loyal to the company (such as benefits that kick in after X number of years or a bonus they expect at year's end) may also be only loyal because they need to be. Satisfaction will almost always play a role in loyalty in some way, and loyalty based solely on satisfaction is perhaps one of the strongest types of loyalty there is – something that companies should strive for because employees that are loyal due to satisfaction are more likely to keep their loyalty.

But it should also be clear that not all loyalty is based on satisfaction, and that is where the clear differences between satisfaction and loyalty lie. While satisfaction plays an important role in loyalty, it is also not the only type of loyalty available, which is why both need to be measured separately. Read more on: 5 Tips to Improve Employee Loyalty Can Employee Surveys Create Loyalty