Why Employee Satisfaction questionnaires and Employee Exit questionnaires Make Good Sense
Posted: under General Interest.
If businesses that strives to become more streamlined and productive are not careful their efforts to become more competitive can result in a workforce that is working under pressure which in turn could cause low moral and possibly a high staff turnover. The benefits of an organization having a highly motivated workforce can be considerable and the two goals of having employees that are both motivated and productive 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.
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 a plethora of reasons why employees may become dissatisfied with their job that can result in them channelling their frustrations into demands for higher salaries and reduced 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.
Not just about the 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
- Out of date working methods
- Lack of proper tools and equipment
The solution to an employee’s problems is not always through the awarding of higher salaries. There have been many studies made that have found that the level of financial reward is rarely the main motivator towards job satisfaction.
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.
Good communications is what it is about
It is in the interests of all organizations to establish good communications. A company where the management does not communicate well with their employees, or will wait for any problems to be raised, can often be deceived into thinking that they have a content workforce when they don’t. 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
One to one meetings between employer and employee would be ideal but in practice only 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 function is to inform, not to discuss employee issues.
Maintaining the initiative
Conducting employee satisfaction surveys on a regular basis you are able to ask each employee specific questions and present 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 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’s easy and quick
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 making online surveys quick to design and quick to 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 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 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 a difficult situation to the employees 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 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. 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.
For a Sample Employee Satisfaction Survey:- Employee Satisfaction Survey Template
For a sample Employee Exit survey:- Employee Exit Survey Template
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Jul 31 2009