With the need for many businesses to be more streamlined and productive a company can sometimes find itself with many of their employees working under pressure that can then lead to low moral and possible result in a high staff turnover. The benefits of an organization having a highly motivated workforce can be considerable and the two goals of having employees that are both motivated and productive should not be regarded as being mutually exclusive to one another.
When problems are left unresolved then there is a risk of companies alienating their employees leading to employee frustrations growing to a point where managers find that they are on the back foot with problems that just cannot be ignored.
In an ideal world employers would take time to understand the needs of their employees and learn from their experiences of working on the front line, but employers are often themselves tied up day to day fighting their own fires.
By automating much of the intelligence gathering process and the findings being instantly available in a format that can be readily analysed online surveys provide employers with an affordable method to help achieve staff satisfaction and high productivity.
Dissatisfied & unproductive
There are many reasons why employees may be dissatisfied with their job and more often than not staff frustration is channelled into a demand for higher salaries and less hours. Managers who tackle these issues head on, making it all about salary and hours, will often find themselves dealing with the symptoms and not the root cause.
It’s not about money
The following is a list of common barriers that will prevent an organization from achieving an increase in productivity, none of which are likely to be resolved by increasing salaries or reducing hours:-
- Inadequate training
- Out of touch management
- Out of date working methods
- Lack of proper tools and equipment
Numerous studies have shown that salaries are rarely the most important priority for employees and providing an employer is paying a fair rate they would be fundamentally wrong to think that paying higher salaries is a panacea to all employee problems.
Take the case of a single mother who is juggling a full time job with the need to look after four children. Out of frustration she may demand more money so that she feels that she is able to cope where a better solution, for both her and the business, may be more flexible working hours.
Good communications is what it is about
It is in the interests of all organizations to establish good communications. An organization that makes communication between management and personnel difficult, or that takes the view that it is the responsibility for personnel who have a problem to say something, can often deceive themselves into thinking their workforce is content when it is not. It can very easily start with a small problem and one aggrieved employee for the problem to escalate to involve an entire workforce and generate a ‘them and us’ attitude.
Improving communication
One to one meetings between employer and employee would be ideal but in practice only practical for very small businesses.
Regular meetings between management and worker representatives are good in theory but they often become talking shops and can begin to lose their edge as the participants become familiar with one another and the forum runs the risk of being hijacked by the more extrovert personalities.
Having suggestion boxes are useful but can be viewed as token efforts by management as they wait for personnel to highlight a problem.
Newsletters can provide a positive contribution but they only offer one way communication and their primary function is to inform and not discuss employee issues.
Keeping the initiative
Conducting employee satisfaction surveys on a regular basis can be used to ask each employee specific questions and demonstrates a pro-active management initiative where the whole workforce can be consulted on various issues. Surveys are able to provide a level playing field between the quieter and more vocal employees.
Being prepared to consulate with employees should not be seen as a sign of weakness, a confident manager will take counsel from all quarters before making a decision. By issuing a survey and keeping the initiative the employer is able to tackle problems from a position of strength as opposed to waiting for problems to fester and then develop out of proportion.
If small problems are left unresolved the employees mood can change from positive to negative over night when a minor problem breaks the camel’s back.
It’s easy and quick
For most companies online surveys represent a proactive and low cost solution. For the majority of organizations where most of the personnel have desktop computers, online surveys are quick to design and deploy direct to the individual.
Where not all of the personal have access to a computer there are various options available that will allow you to accommodate their responses such as providing a shared computer, conducting telephone surveys or as a last resort, a hardcopy survey where the hard-copy responses can be added to those who competed the survey online.
Job satisfaction
There are elements that together will help towards providing an employee with job satisfaction, including company ethics, working environment, methodology and ethos to having effective and decisive management. Job satisfaction brings benefits through improved productivity and motivation from a workforce that feels that they are treated as individuals and not a commodity item.
Educate and inform
Online surveys can be used to educate and disseminate information on to the workforce, ensuring that the ‘message’ is consistently delivered and does not suffer from the Chinese whisper phenomenon where a message can become distorted as it is passed on.
An online survey can explain to the employees a difficult situation and get valuable feedback as to the best solution. It is rare in this situation that the workforce would appear negative; it is more likely they will feel informed and empowered and that might be enough to unite the workforce and turn a negative problem into a positive challenge.
Exit surveys
Exit surveys are an ideal method for management to make sure that when people leave the organisation they are not leaving because of problems that could have been addressed and possibly resolved if they had been appreciated earlier. If a problem has been identified it may be too late to prevent an individual from leaving but if addressed it could prevent other key personnel leaving for the same reasons.
For a Sample Employee Satisfaction Survey:- Employee Satisfaction Survey Template
For a sample Employee Exit survey:- Employee Exit Survey Template
Just A Few Thoughts