What is a job satisfaction survey, and is it enough to map the working environment?

What is job satisfaction?

In Norwegian workplaces the everyday word is «trivsel»; research usually speaks of job satisfaction. The Norwegian encyclopaedia Store norske leksikon defines it as how content a person is with their job situation.

The encyclopaedia notes that the concept lacks a precise definition, and that the definition you choose will determine how you measure job satisfaction, for example in an employee survey. Two satisfaction surveys can therefore measure quite different things.

According to the encyclopaedia, satisfaction is shaped by three kinds of conditions: characteristics of the person, such as personality and expectations; characteristics of the job, such as workload, variety and autonomy; and characteristics of the organisation, such as leadership, culture and participation. The last two are what the employer can do something about, and they are what the rules are about.

Satisfaction is an outcome, not a cause

When Arbeidstilsynet proposed the new rules on the psychosocial working environment in 2024, it described a pattern from its inspections:

The consultation paper also describes the consequence: few take good measures for the psychosocial working environment, satisfaction and welfare measures dominate, and there is no clear line back to the mapping and risk assessment.

A low satisfaction score says something is wrong, but not what. Is it the workload, unclear roles, a conflict or too little support? Without an answer, the measure easily becomes a social event while the cause remains.

Demands and resources

The job demands–resources model, developed by Bakker and Demerouti, divides the working environment into demands – such as workload, time pressure and emotional strain – and resources, such as support, influence and feedback. Arbeidstilsynet summarises the model like this in the consultation paper:

A satisfaction survey captures the sum of the two processes in a single number. The same middling satisfaction can hide high demands offset by good resources, and low demands in a job with little support and influence – two situations that call for entirely different measures.

The whole picture matters. A STAMI study of 6,175 employees in 62 Norwegian organisations found that high control over one’s own work did not appear to protect against pain complaints for those who at the same time had low or middling levels of other protective factors. The researchers concluded that high job control is not enough to protect employees against the adverse effects of other working environment factors, and that the whole picture must be considered when assessing the working environment.

What do the rules require?

The requirement concerns the factors in the work that can affect health, safety and welfare, and how they interact – not how content employees are. The word satisfaction («trivsel») appears neither in chapter 1A of the regulation nor in Arbeidstilsynet’s comments on it. A satisfaction survey can be a useful supplement, but it does not meet the requirement on its own. Read more about the requirements for mapping.

What protects belongs too

Arbeidstilsynet writes in its comments on the regulation that such factors can act both as strains and as protection, and that protective factors may therefore also be relevant to include in the mapping. Support from managers and colleagues, influence over one’s own work and a sense of meaning are resources that make demands easier to carry. Measure them, and you see both what strains and what you can build on.

One question gives one number

A satisfaction survey can be as short as a single question on how content you are, or whether you would recommend the workplace to others. Such a question can show a level and a direction over time. It cannot show the cause, and it gives no basis for assessing the risk factor by factor, as the regulation requires.

Making the survey useful

• Keep the satisfaction question if you like, but also measure what explains it: workload, role clarity, support, influence, emotional demands and how people treat each other. See which questions belong in an employee survey.
• Use several sources. Arbeidstilsynet names working environment surveys, safety inspections, incident reports, appraisal conversations and informal conversations.
• Ask employees what lies behind the figures. See how to review the results with employees.
• Aim measures at the causes. Arbeidstilsynet writes that measures should as far as possible address the causes of the risk, for example organisational or work-related conditions.
• Follow up with short surveys on the topics where you have put measures in place. See pulse survey.
• Keep answers anonymous. See what an anonymous employee survey means.