Xigaware

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. Organizations that have a highly motivated workforce can benefit enormously and having a workforce that is both motivated and productive should not be regarded as being mutually exclusive to one another.

Left unresolved employers run the risk of alienating their employees and events can then cause employee frustrations to explode resulting in employers finding themselves on the back foot, faced with problems that cannot be ignored.

Ideally 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 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. Managers who tackle problems thinking it is all about salary and hours, will often find later that they have been dealing with the symptoms and not the root cause.

It’s not about money

The following are the most common problems to achieving productivity, none of which are likely to be resolved by increasing salaries or reducing hours:-

• Inadequate training
• Out of touch management
• Working methods that are past their sell by date
• 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 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.

Two way communication is what it is all about

It is important for any organization to encourage communication. Without good communication between personnel and management, or where management wait until problems are raised, management may assume that they have a content workforce when in actual fact the opposite is true. It can take only one small problem and one employee to feel aggrieved for an entire workforce to develop a destructive ‘them and us’ attitude.

Improving communication

Ideally employer and employee would meet one on one but in practice this would seem practical only for 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 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 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.

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.

Quick and easy

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.

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 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 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 unite the workforce and turn a negative problem into a positive challenge.

Exit surveys

Exit surveys are an excellent way of ensuring that when personnel leave an organisation they are leaving for the right reasons and not due to reasons that if appreciated earlier could have been addressed and resolved by management. 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.

Analysing the results

Having consulted with the workforce using an online survey the 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

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