In a competitive world with the need for businesses to be more streamlined and productive a company can often find itself with a workforce working under pressure resulting in low moral and high staff turnover. The benefits of a company having a highly motivated workforce can be considerable and having a workforce that is both motivated and productive should not be regarded as being mutually exclusive to one another.
Left unattended employers run the risk of alienating their employees, events can cause employee frustrations to boil over resulting in employers finding themselves on the back foot, faced with a problem that cannot be ignored.
Ideally employers would allocate the time to fully understand the needs of their employees and learn from their experiences of working on the front line, but employers are too often themselves tied up with the day to day task of fighting their own fires.
By automating the majority of the intelligence gathering process and having the findings in a format that can be easily analysed online surveys provide employers with an efficient and cost effective method to help towards establishing a pleasant working environment, where employee satisfaction and productivity is high.
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. Employers 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 are some common barriers to achieving 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- Out of date working methods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
There have been many studies that have consistently revealed that financial reward is not the most important motivator for employees, providing an employee is being paid the market rate the employer would be wrong to think that the solution to all employee problems is through paying higher salaries.
Take the case of a single mother who is juggling a full time job with the need to look after three 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 company, may be more flexible working hours.
Two way communication is what it is all about
It is in any company’s interest to establish good communications. An organization where the management do not communicate well with their employees, or will wait for problems to be raised, can often think that they have a content workforce when the reality is that they don’t. It only takes one small problem and one disgruntled employee to feel aggrieved for an entire workforce to develop a destructive ‘them and us’ attitude.
Improving communication
It would be ideal if the employer and employee could meet one on one but in practice this is impractical for everyone except very small organizations.
Meetings between management and worker representatives are good in theory but can often spiral into becoming talking shops and losing their purpose as both sides become more familiar with one another and the meetings run the risk of being hijacked by the more extreme 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 their purpose is generally to inform and not discuss employee issues.
Maintaining 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 the employer is able to keep the initiative and tackle problems from a position of strength as opposed to waiting for problems to manifest and then possibly develop out of proportion.
If small problems are left unresolved they can lead to a relatively minor problem breaking the camel’s back and management faced with a workforce whose mood has changed from positive to negative over night.
It is quick and easy
For the majority of companies online surveys represent a proactive and low cost solution. They can be created very quickly and for the majority of organizations, where most of the personnel have desktop computers, they are also quick to deploy direct to the individual.
In situations where individuals do not have personal access to a computer there are still many options available to implement the online survey solution such as giving access to a shared computer, operator input or, as a last resort, a hardcopy survey.
Job satisfaction
There are combined elements that will contribute towards an employee’s job satisfaction, including company ethics, working methodology, ethos and environment to having decisive and effective 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
A less appreciated benefit of online surveys is that they can be used effectively to educate and deliver important information to the workforce, ensuring that the ‘message’ is delivered consistently and does not become corrupted as it is passed down the line.
An online survey can explain to the employees a difficult situation and get valuable feedback as to the best solution. In this situation it is rare that the workforce would appear negative and more likely that they will feel informed and empowered that might in itself turn a potentially negative problem into a positive challenge that unites the workforce.
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. Although identifying a problem may not prevent a person leaving, having identified a problem it can then be addressed and that may be enough to prevent other key personnel from leaving.
For a Sample Employee Satisfaction Survey:- Employee Satisfaction Survey Template
For a sample Employee Exit survey:- Employee Exit Survey Template
