Creating 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.
A young lad started last Thursday, no one bothered to introduce him to me and they gave him a job that he had no idea how to do; why didn’t they just ask me? 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a new set of plans have been released so even if they did know what they were doing the drawings they are using are out of date anyway. Sometimes I don’t know why I bother turning up.
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 here just don’t have a clue, we are losing money through our inefficiencies and every time they come up with a new initiative they are so far off the mark that it just demonstrates how out of touch they really are.
I’m going to ask for a pay rise, if Sally can get one so should I.
And on it goes.
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 a sceptical and critical state of mind 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. Diverse frustration will often amalgamate into a demand for an increase in remuneration, as though like a cheap fix more money will briefly reduce 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 effective and strong management to support this structure it can be productive, but as an organisation grows, and weak or inappropriate management infiltrates the management chain, it is perhaps inevitable 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.
Experience shows us that relying on a limited number of indicators gives a skewed perspective just like a person with only one eye has difficulty judging distance. By establishing procedures that sample the mood from different perspectives throughout the organisation good management will be able to form a rounded picture.
There are both direct and indirect benefits of establishing good, frequent and extensive communication channels.
Greater respect will be given to a senior management team that is known to have their ear to the ground and where they keep the middle management honest by knowing that middle managers can no longer shrug away the senior manager’s searching inquiry “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 effective communications between the employee and employer. Using a survey hosting service they can now be created and published with speed and ease.
Surveys can be deployed in seconds by utilising the Internet and intranet, they can be completed easily by employees and the results analyzed in real-time exposing the ‘problems’ and giving early warning towards common themes of dissatisfaction.
With their ability to get to the heart of an organization online employee satisfaction surveys can confirm that all is well in the engine room and that there is sufficient fuel to keep it running.
Online surveys provide many benefits, not only do they help identified concerns, but the employees voices are heard and their views, right or wrong, have a forum.
Although online surveys will not on their own resolve problems they do help identify the concerns of the employees and that in turn gives senior management the opportunity to fix the problems that need fixing, if people then do decide to leave the organisation they will hopefully be doing so for the right and not wrong reasons.
Although monetary concerns can often be cited as the main reason good people decide to leave a company dig a little deeper and it is often found that it is more to do with one or more of the following:-
- the working environment;
- a lack of accomplishment
- insufficient training and feedback;
- lack of career growth;
- over worked;
- lack of trust and respect with their senior managers.
A well planned employer/employee communications programme that can identify the individual and common concerns of employees will give senior management the opportunity to address root problems and not just the symptoms of employee dissatisfaction, allowing them to demonstrate to their employees that they are not viewed simply as interchangeable parts that can be used for any job at hand.
Each individual organisation needs to customised their own employee survey so that it is relevant for them. To get an idea as to how effective online surveys can be try completing the sample employee satisfaction questionnaire, then view the results of the satisfaction survey and just think of the benefits to management being able to measure so easily the heart beat of the organization.
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