In a competitive world with the need for businesses to be more productive and streamlined an organization can often find itself with a workforce working under pressure suffering from low moral and experiencing a high staff turnover. Organizations that have a highly motivated workforce can benefit enormously and having a workforce that is both productive and motivated should not be regarded as being mutually exclusive to one another.
If problems are left unresolved then companies run the risk of alienating their employees and events can then cause employee frustrations to boil over resulting in managers finding themselves on the back foot, faced with problems that 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.
Online surveys provide employers with an effective and affordable method by automating the process of collating the information and storing it in a format that allows for real-time analysis supplying the management with the intelligence required to 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 just about the money
The following are common barriers to achieving productivity, none of which are likely to be resolved by increasing salaries or reducing hours:-
- Insufficient training
- Out of touch management
- Out of date working methods
- Lack of proper tools and equipment
Paying higher salaries is not always a solution to an employee’s problems nor as many studies have revealed is it the most important motivator for employees.
Take the case of a single mother who is juggling a full time job with the need to look after a child. 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 important for any company to encourage communication. 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 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
Ideally management would hold one to one meetings with each employee but in practice this would only seem practical for very small businesses.
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.
Suggestion boxes can be useful but can be viewed as token efforts by management as they wait for personnel to highlight a problem.
Newsletters can be a positive step, but their primary purpose is to inform and not discuss issues.
Maintaining the initiative
Conducting employee satisfaction surveys regularly you are able to ask each employee specific questions and presents 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.
Consultation should not be seen as a sign of weakness, a confident manager will often take counsel from others before making a decision. By retaining the initiative and conducting a survey the employer is able to tackle problems from a position of strength as opposed to waiting for problems to arise and develop out of proportion.
Leave a number of minor problems unresolved and it can lead to a situation where a small problem might just break the camel’s back and the mood of the employees change 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. For the majority of organizations where most of the personnel have desktop computers, they are quick to design and deploy direct to the individual.
In situations where not all of the personal have access to a computer there are options available to implement the online survey solution such as providing a shared computer, have an operator input their responses or as a last resort, a hardcopy survey.
Job satisfaction
There are a number of elements that combined will provide an employee with job satisfaction, from company ethics, working environment, methodology and ethos to having good and effective management. Job satisfaction brings benefits through improved motivation and productivity from a workforce that feels that they are treated as individuals and not a commodity item.
Inform and educate
An online survey can also be used to educate and pass on to the workforce important information, the ‘message’ is consistently delivered and does not suffer from the Chinese whisper phenomenon where a message can be distorted as it is handed down.
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 turn a potentially negative problem into a positive challenge that unites the workforce.
Exit surveys
Exit surveys are a method for management to confirm that when people leave the organisation they are leaving for valid reasons and not for reasons that if appreciated earlier could have been addressed and possibly resolved. 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.
Analysing the results
After having consulted with the workforce using an online survey the survey results are available for instant analysis. Common and specific problems can be identified very easily and then brought to the attention of senior management who will then have the chance to address the issues that have been raised.
Summary
Used regularly online surveys represent a simple and productive method of taking the pulse of an organisation and an easy way to establish a two way communication channel between employer and employee with the results providing management with vital, accurate and significant information.
For a Sample Employee Satisfaction Survey:- Employee Satisfaction Survey Template
For a sample Employee Exit survey:- Employee Exit Survey Template
