Every good manager wants their employees to feel happy and fulfilled at work. So, to improve employee job satisfaction, many managers will focus on rewarding great work or introducing new perks into the office. But there may be another way: improving your project management. After all, project management is about how your employees work, and the processes and technology they use to accomplish tasks on a daily basis. So optimizing those processes and making changes that make their lives easier can increase job satisfaction in a number of ways.
Here are 4 key ways that optimized project management can increase employee satisfaction for members of your marketing or creative services team.
1. Managing workloads and capacity
Nobody likes being overworked. It can be stressful, overwhelming and ultimately leave employees feeling unfulfilled. Likewise, no one wants to feel like their talents are being wasted because they don’t have enough work, or they’re being asked to do things that are outside their realm of expertise. So, managing workloads and project assignments is a critical part of keeping employees happy. By optimizing your project management, you can do just that.
By tracking your most important project data and KPIs, you can analyze reports and improve your resource planning efforts. That way, you can make sure that all of your human talent is being used effectively and no one is getting overburdened by too many projects. This will help ensure that everyone is out the door and headed home by 5 p.m., creating the work-life balance that many modern employees look for in an employer.
But it also means that employees can focus on what they do best. Employees are most satisfied when they get to work on projects that excite them, where they can apply their talents and create impactful deliverables. With improved resource planning, graphic designers won’t get stuck with video editing projects that they dread doing and struggle to complete. Instead, you can match the right task to the right person for the right project, making everyone a little happier in the process.
If you’d rather not compile capacity and workload reports manually, you should consider adding new project management software to your technology stack. Solutions like RoboHead provide dashboards and other data visualization features that make measuring capacity fast and easy. But however you do it, optimizing your project management processes to improve resource planning will show employees you value their time and effort. This helps foster a positive company culture and can increase employee job satisfaction.
2. Better technology, better employee satisfaction
On the subject of software, it’s important to note that upgrading your software can increase employee job satisfaction all on its own. Just like the walls of your office or the chairs they sit on, technology is part of the environment your employees work in. Having powerful, intuitive and easy to use software creates a better environment for them to do that work. Adding new software shows employees that you support their efforts and are actively investing in making their lives better. When employees feel that their company truly cares about them, they are much more likely to feel satisfied in their jobs. As you think about how to increase employee satisfaction at your company, take a step back and consider all the factors, both big and small, that contribute to happy employees.
3. Stronger collaboration limits frustration
Employee job satisfaction suffers when employees find it difficult to do their jobs or there’s confusion about a project. So, it’s important to give your employees the tools and resources they need to work together effectively.
For starters, establishing clear processes and defined workflows that are known and shared throughout your organization will help eliminate any confusion about next steps during a project. When you can supply team members with powerful collaboration tools, they can produce projects quicker and work together more easily. This can alleviate any stress about deadlines and helps avoid frustration from bubbling up between team members. If you can implement audit tracking and version control protocols for creative assets, you can establish accountability and solve problems before they happen.
Coworkers can be a source of frustration for any employee. While you may never be able to get everyone to sing “Kumbaya” around the campfire, you can take steps to facilitate better collaboration. By optimizing your project management processes, you can avoid frustrating situations and clear the way for your team to do its best work.
4. Increasing job satisfaction outside your team
Although project management optimization will have the biggest impact on your internal marketing or creative services team, it can also increase job satisfaction for employees throughout your organization. The key is to establish processes that make it quick and easy for outside personnel to interact with your team.
For example, you may need stakeholders in other departments to review and approve creative deliverables. Because this is likely an extra task on top of their normal responsibilities, it may not be their favorite thing to do. But you can optimize your review and approval process to ensure that all stakeholders know exactly what kind of feedback they are expected to give when reviewing a project. This will help limit the time they spend in review, freeing up time to spend on their core responsibilities. Creating this kind of process that accounts for and respects stakeholders’ time can help them form a more positive relationship with your team and improve their satisfaction with at least one aspect of their job.
Project management can have a profound effect on your company culture because it affects the way employees work every day. While it can be difficult to quantify this effect, it’s important for maintaining a productive and cohesive team. By improving your project management processes, you can actually improve your company culture and increase employee job satisfaction in the process.
