With the need for many businesses to be more streamlined and productive a company can sometimes find itself with many of their employees working under pressure that can then lead to low moral and possible result in 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.

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.

Online surveys provide employers with an effective and affordable method by automating the process of collating the information and storing it in a format that allows for real-time analysis supplying the with the intelligence required to achieve staff satisfaction and high productivity.

 

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 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

The following is a list of common barriers that will prevent an organization from achieving an increase in 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  • Out of date working methods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

There have been many studies that have consistently revealed that financial reward is not the most important motivator for employees, providing an employee is being paid the market rate the employer would be wrong to think that the solution to all employee problems is through paying higher salaries.

Take the case of a single mother who is juggling a full time job with the need to look after a child. 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.

 

It is about communication

It is in the interests of all organizations to establish good communications. A that makes it difficult for personnel and management to communicate, or that takes the view that if individuals have a problem they will say so, can often delude themselves into thinking that their staff are content when they are not. It can very easily start with a small problem and one aggrieved employee for the problem to escalate to involve an entire workforce and generate a ‘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.

Regular meetings between management and worker representatives are good in theory but they often become talking shops and can begin to lose their edge as the participants become familiar with one another and the runs the risk of being hijacked by the more extrovert 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 purpose is generally to inform and not discuss issues.

 

Maintaining the initiative

Conducting employee satisfaction surveys regularly you are able to ask each employee specific questions and presents 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 issuing a survey and keeping the initiative the employer is able to tackle problems from a position of strength as opposed to waiting for problems to fester and then develop out of proportion.

Leave lots of minor problems unresolved and a further small problem might just break the camel’s back and in a blink of an eye change the mood of the workforce from positive to negative.

 

It is easy and quick

For the majority of organizations online surveys represent a proactive, effective and low cost solution. For the majority of organizations where most of the personnel have computers, online surveys are quick to design and deploy direct to the individual.

Where not all of the personal have access to a computer there are various options available that will allow you to accommodate their responses such as providing a shared computer, conducting telephone surveys or as a last resort, a hardcopy survey where the hard-copy responses can be added to those who competed the survey online.

 

Job satisfaction

There are combined elements that will contribute towards an employee’s job satisfaction, including company ethics, working methodology, ethos and to having decisive and effective management. Job satisfaction brings benefits through improved productivity and motivation 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. 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. 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.

 

For a Sample Employee Satisfaction Survey:- Employee Satisfaction Survey Template

For a sample Employee Exit survey:- Employee Exit Survey Template