We’ve all experienced it — finishing a workplace survey or assessment only to be met with a bland message: “Thank you for your response. You may now close the window.” That’s a missed opportunity. At that very moment, the employee has just reflected on something deeply relevant — their own job satisfaction. That’s exactly when the door is open for insight, personal reflection, and even change. That’s why every employee who uses GAIS receives a personalized report with insights and inspiration for development.
This idea is just one of several core principles behind the design of GAIS. Let’s take a closer look at what makes the GAIS platform unique.
1. Job satisfaction is built together
At its core, GAIS is based on a simple but powerful belief: job satisfaction is co-created. A single passionate employee can’t shift the workplace culture alone, not without the support of leadership. Likewise, leaders need backing from their own superiors and a clear framework to guide change. GAIS is designed to support this shared development journey.
We provide the employee with insights into their own well-being and targeted knowledge on how it can be improved. We give the manager an overview of the team’s well-being and help prioritize efforts. And we support external partners and consultants in using GAIS as a foundation to contribute to the necessary development processes that take place before and after the GAIS survey.
2. Everyone is equipped for growth
An important part of improving workplace well-being is making sure everyone involved is properly equipped. One major opportunity lies in clearly defining the framework for change, so it becomes understandable and actionable for employees. This brings us back to the earlier example – the employee who just closes the window after responding.
In GAIS, it’s not just the manager who receives a team report. Each employee receives their own with insights into their job satisfaction. That way, the entire team is prepared for the next step, and a shared foundation is created for managers, employees, HR, and any external advisors.
This approach creates a shared language based on the seven GAIS job satisfaction factors. Because the employee has received a personal GAIS report, everyone, not just the manager, is better prepared for the journey ahead. In a sense, the baseline is elevated, which increases the likelihood of positive change.
3. From charts and graphs to concrete recommendations
Few people would claim that a bunch of charts and decimal-heavy tables alone can spark real improvements in job satisfaction. But in reality, that’s where many organizations find themselves after completing a well-being survey. Measuring the job satisfaction of a team or organization is a great starting point but only a starting point.
At GAIS, we do appreciate data and graphs. But we’re even more passionate about turning insights into action and using knowledge to drive change. That’s why throughout GAIS, users are presented with selected, tailored recommendations based on their specific results. Both employees and managers see suggestions related to the results they’re viewing. Managers get recommendations on how to support the team’s development, while employees get inspiration on steps they can take personally. A recommendation might be a guide, an article, a video, or a practical tool.
4. Grounded in research
At first glance, job satisfaction might seem like a vague concept. After all, many different things can influence well-being and happiness at work. But job satisfaction is actually quite tangible.
GAIS is built on years of research behind the Job Satisfaction Index, which began in 2015. You can ask a lot of questions about well-being, and you can guess at what matters most but we don’t need to guess. GAIS builds on validated factors, questions, data sets, and analyses that have been refined through the Job Satisfaction Index. We stand on a solid foundation and know what to measure, what drives job satisfaction, and how it should be analyzed. GAIS uses seven core factors that apply across industries, ages, genders, education levels, and more forming a thoroughly validated model.
5. Knowledge and data should be inspiring and accessible
GAIS is designed to be so intuitive and inspiring that even those who’ve never touched Excel can gain insights and feel motivated to act. Job satisfaction is too important to be made unnecessarily complex. It’s unreasonable to expect a degree in statistics to encourage workplace well-being.
Our goal is to make GAIS inspiring, simple, understandable, and practical and we pursue that goal relentlessly. You could say that we constantly balance being light on the front end and deep on the back end. What the user experiences is simplicity and clarity. Behind the scenes, GAIS is powered by big data, algorithms, and statistics. But the user interface, where people interact with GAIS, is all about clarity, insight, and usability. The goal is to turn knowledge into action and into greater job satisfaction.
