Establishing Employee Satisfaction
I am not happy. The printer has still not been fixed and now my chair is broken. The problem with this place is that it is falling apart. My boss is okay but has no clue what is going on.
There was a new person that started last month, no one bothered to introduce them and they were given a job that they had no clue how to do; why didn’t they ask me to look after him? For a start I could have let them know them a new set of plans have been released so even if they did know what they were doing the drawings they are using are out of date anyway. I don’t know why I bother sometimes.
Some of us went out for a drink after work last night. No one is happy and Sally from Accounts says that she has just about had enough and is thinking of asking for a rise and if they don’t give it to her she is going to quit.
The management don’t have a clue, we are losing money through our inefficiencies and all they do is issue memo’s telling us of new procedures for claiming expenses as though it is going to make a difference to how efficient we are – whoopee do.
I think I’ll ask for a pay rise, if Sally from Accounts can get one I can.
And so it goes on.
When a company loses touch with their employees these are the sort of thoughts that start to play on the minds of individuals; the lack of appreciation, a broken chair, the blaming of ‘management’, even questioning the futility of what they are doing. Minor problems fester and it isn’t long before a cynical and destructive mindset develops. Can you be sure that this isn’t the sort of thing that is going on right now in your organisation?
Social events outside the office become nothing more than a forum for complaints and negativity grows among people who feel powerless to effect change. Dissatisfaction will often synthesise into a demand for an increase in remuneration, as though like a cheap fix more money will momentarily lessen the pain.
Left by management, undiscovered and unaware, the concerns of this employee will inevitable find solace with their colleagues own individual concerns, where the only common demand will be for an increase in remuneration, more paid holidays and a reduction in working hours, all of which will not fix the broken chair, ensure that new personnel are in future properly introduced, trained and managed nor help management identify areas of inefficiency.
Organisations have a habit of pigeon holing people, physically through offices, cubicles or workstations and also in terms of responsibility. With strong and effective management to support this structure it can be productive, but as an organisation grows, weak or inappropriate management can infiltrate the management chain and it is only to then be expected that cracks will begin to appear.
Looking at an organization from the top down all the corporate garden can appear to be in full bloom as middle management either disguise or are just unaware of festering problems.
A very skewed view can be the result of relying on a limited number of indicators, just as a one eyed person finds judging distance difficult. Good management will therefore establish procedures that sample the mood throughout the organisation from different perspectives providing a rounded picture.
The benefits of establishing good, frequent and extensive communication channels are both direct and indirect.
A senior management team that is known to have their ear to the ground will command great respect and will keep middle managers from becoming complacent knowing that they can no longer dismiss the senior managers searching “How is everything going?” question with a non-committal “Fine”; It is my experience that if someone replies with “fine” you need to dig deeper and ask if they really know what is going on.
Most principals of an organisation will not have the luxury of spending time walking the floor and discussing the issues of individuals but through online employee surveys they can achieve the same benefits and almost become omnipresent.
Online surveys provide an ideal method to establish good and effective communications between the employer and employee. Using a survey hosting service they can now be created and published with ease and speed.
Using the Internet and intranet surveys can be deployed in seconds, easily completed by employees and results can be displayed in real time allowing ‘problems’ and common themes of dissatisfaction to be identified early.
Online employee satisfaction surveys have the ability to get to the heart of an organisation, confirm not only that the engine room is working but that there is sufficient coal in the bunker.
There are considerable benefits to conducting online surveys, real issues can be identified and employees feel that they have a forum to express their concerns.
Online surveys will not in themselves resolve a problem but what they will do is give senior management the opportunity to address the problems and concerns of their employees, if people then leave the organisation they will at least hopefully be doing it for the right and not wrong reasons.
The grass will always appear greener on the other side but the underlying reasons for good people leaving an organisation are rarely purely monetary (although it is often cited as the reason) and more often to do with one or more of the following:-
- the working environment;
- a lack of accomplishment
- insufficient training and feedback;
- lack of a career path;
- over worked;
- lack of trust and respect with the senior management.
Good communication between the employer and employee can help identify the individual and common concerns of the employees and will give the senior management team the opportunity to address root problems and not just the symptoms of employee dissatisfaction, enabling them to demonstrate to their employees that they are valued as an important resource.
Each individual organisation needs to customised their own employee survey so that it is relevant for them. I invite you to put yourself in the place of an employee and complete the short sample employee survey, then view the results of the satisfaction questionnaire and just think of the benefits to management being able to measure so easily the heart beat of the organization.