Why Survey Employee Opinions ??
Employees are often referred as the internal customers of the organisation. Understanding the attitudes, behavior, their motivations, feelings and issues affecting them and their performance is an elementary concern for any and every organisation, as they play an extremely important role in shaping and directing the organisation's productivity and achievement of the goals and overall success. The importance of employee opinions has been an issue of debate for organisations and HR experts from a long time now.
Employee satisfaction surveys, participatory meetings, employee suggestion boxes etc are various means to know what's on the mind of the employees or, to feel the pulse of the employees.
Such employee opinion provides valuable insights and information about the employees and the organisation to identify and address serious issues affecting the workforce like levels of employee engagement, undiscovered problems and fostering optimum utilization of resources and, achieving and extracting the best possible productivity of the employees as well as the organisation. It will help the organisation to create a brand image for itself as an employer and attracting and retaining the best potential talent.
Why conduct and employee satisfaction / opinion survey???
Employee satisfaction survey or employee opinion is like a double edged sword which can be used both against and in favour of the employee. Being in constant touch with the employees through these tools and acting upon the information gathered can lead to significant results. Some of them are:
Important issue
An important issue related to the employee satisfaction and opinion surveys is to face, analyze and deal with the criticisms and with unbiased outlook and positive manner. Any and every organisation has some percentage of demotivated, dissatisfied or undervalued employees and will receive feedback on similar lines. Also, there might exist problems that the management might not be aware of. So, the organisation (management) and the HR professionals should be mentally prepared to deal with the problems and the scenario and take the results in a positive manner. Underestimating the importance of such tools to achieve organizational effectiveness and its goals and objectives, various researches have found that only 51% of American organisations formally ask employees about their opinions and feedback. And, only 54% of organisations conducting employee surveys actually acted on that employee feedback. Surveying employee opinions helps to identify the existing or potential problems and act as an early warning system for the same. An organisation should feel the alarm bells ringing for an employee satisfaction survey when it finds itself facing:
How to make an employee satisfaction survey successful?
Employees are the greatest assess of an organisation. Therefore, valuing their issues, thoughts and opinions can provide significant insights to organizational performance and achieve its goals. It is an investment which builds a sense of commitment and attachment of the employees with the organisation. Also, a simple and cost-effective of tool of knowing employee opinions can go a long way in creating satisfied employees leading to satisfied customers and ensuring long term success of the organisation.
From India, Pune
4Employees are often referred as the internal customers of the organisation. Understanding the attitudes, behavior, their motivations, feelings and issues affecting them and their performance is an elementary concern for any and every organisation, as they play an extremely important role in shaping and directing the organisation's productivity and achievement of the goals and overall success. The importance of employee opinions has been an issue of debate for organisations and HR experts from a long time now.
Employee satisfaction surveys, participatory meetings, employee suggestion boxes etc are various means to know what's on the mind of the employees or, to feel the pulse of the employees.
Such employee opinion provides valuable insights and information about the employees and the organisation to identify and address serious issues affecting the workforce like levels of employee engagement, undiscovered problems and fostering optimum utilization of resources and, achieving and extracting the best possible productivity of the employees as well as the organisation. It will help the organisation to create a brand image for itself as an employer and attracting and retaining the best potential talent.
Why conduct and employee satisfaction / opinion survey???
Employee satisfaction survey or employee opinion is like a double edged sword which can be used both against and in favour of the employee. Being in constant touch with the employees through these tools and acting upon the information gathered can lead to significant results. Some of them are:
- Foster employee and organizational productivity by identifying and removing the bottlenecks.
- Assessing and improving employee satisfaction
- Judge the level of workforce engagement
- Gauge and reinforce your current organizational culture and climate
- Improve the retention levels in the organisation
- Provide insight and reinforce the organizational values and ethos
- Assisting in the optimal utilization of resources
- Assisting in managing and incorporating change in the organisation
- Examine the past objectives and help in setting the same for the future
- Improve communication and understanding of employee's issues & expectations
Important issue
An important issue related to the employee satisfaction and opinion surveys is to face, analyze and deal with the criticisms and with unbiased outlook and positive manner. Any and every organisation has some percentage of demotivated, dissatisfied or undervalued employees and will receive feedback on similar lines. Also, there might exist problems that the management might not be aware of. So, the organisation (management) and the HR professionals should be mentally prepared to deal with the problems and the scenario and take the results in a positive manner. Underestimating the importance of such tools to achieve organizational effectiveness and its goals and objectives, various researches have found that only 51% of American organisations formally ask employees about their opinions and feedback. And, only 54% of organisations conducting employee surveys actually acted on that employee feedback. Surveying employee opinions helps to identify the existing or potential problems and act as an early warning system for the same. An organisation should feel the alarm bells ringing for an employee satisfaction survey when it finds itself facing:
- High attrition rate: An employee satisfaction survey can help significantly to identify the causes of the high attrition rates and take measures to rectify them.
- Excessive rumors: Employee opinion surveys can help to reduce the rumor mills working overtime in an organisation and reinforce trust and proper communication amongst the employees.
- Planned or recent organizational changes: Employee opinions can act as a significant change catalyst for an organisation.
- Highly competitive industry: Satisfied employees ,means higher productivity and satisfied customers.
How to make an employee satisfaction survey successful?
- If u want to get an honest feedback from the employees, they should be ensured that their identities would be kept confidential i.e. anonymity would be maintained. Otherwise the employees might not give the honest and true feedback and suggestions.
- Acting on the response in a timely manner is equally crucial for the employees to have trust in the organisation and its systems. It reinforces the fact the organisation values its employees and their opinions and issues.
Employees are the greatest assess of an organisation. Therefore, valuing their issues, thoughts and opinions can provide significant insights to organizational performance and achieve its goals. It is an investment which builds a sense of commitment and attachment of the employees with the organisation. Also, a simple and cost-effective of tool of knowing employee opinions can go a long way in creating satisfied employees leading to satisfied customers and ensuring long term success of the organisation.
From India, Pune
Any management group which needs to rely on surveys to understand their employees is far too distant from their employees and not directly listening to them and responding to their needs as a matter of routine. As such, their employees will not be committed to their work because they are being treated more like machines than people, certainly not as valued members of the team.
To learn more about this, read Leadership, Good or Bad <link updated to site home> ( Search On Cite | Search On Google )
Best regards, Ben
Author "Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed"
From United States, Tampa
To learn more about this, read Leadership, Good or Bad <link updated to site home> ( Search On Cite | Search On Google )
Best regards, Ben
Author "Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed"
From United States, Tampa
Community Support and Knowledge-base on business, career and organisational prospects and issues - Register and Log In to CiteHR and post your query, download formats and be part of a fostered community of professionals.
Employee Satisfaction Survey[1].doc