Why Employee Satisfaction and Exit Surveys Make Good Sense
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 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 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.
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.
With the intelligence gathering process being automated and the survey results being made available in a format that can be readily analyzed online surveys provide employers with a cost effective and efficient method to help towards the goals of 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 some 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- Out of date working methods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 two 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.
It is all about communication
It is in any company’s interest 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 take only one aggrieved employee with one small problem for an entire workforce to develop a destructive ‘them and us’ attitude.
Improving communication
It would be ideal if the employer could meet with each employee one on one but in practice this would only be viable 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.
Suggestion boxes are 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.
Keeping 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.
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 small problems unresolved and a small problem might just break the camel’s back and at the drop of a hat change the mood of the workforce from positive to negative.
It is quick and easy
For most organizations 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 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 often overlooked benefit of online surveys is that they can be used to educate and pass on important information to the workforce, ensuring that the ‘message’ does not become corrupted as it is handed down by the phenomenon of Chinese whispers.
An online survey can explain a difficult situation to the employees 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 represent are a good way of making sure that when people 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. Identifying a problem may not be enough to prevent a person from leaving but it could lead to an unappreciated issue being resolved that may be all that is required to stop other key personnel from also deciding to leave.
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 and the senior management informed who then will 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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