Workplace of Choice

Do employers have a pulse on what their employees are thinking or doing in the midst of this changing and unpredictable economy? Are employees staying put and excited to be rewarded for their allegiance? Maybe they've been holding on, just glad to have a job, and as the economy turns around will run to the next new opportunity.

Now is a excellent time to do an Employee Survey - conducting an Employee Survey is a great tool to get a pulse on your employees, understand employee morale and employee motivation,  but there are a few tips for making sure it's useful.

• Be prepared to do SOMETHING with the results - asking employees to go through the exercise and then doing NOTHING is guaranteed to reduce participation next time and disgruntle employees!
• Be honest about why the survey is being conducted and equally honest that, although the data will be carefully assessed, it's an unfortunate fact that not every issue will be addressed. Confirm that the company is committed to hearing employee concerns and acknowledging them even if they all can't be addressed.
• Make sure employees know that all the data is confidential - if employees think that their answers are going ‘into their files' - their responses are likely to be less than honest.
• Conduct the survey onsite or online with access at work. If a survey (or even a focus group) is held off-site, it conveys a message that ‘it's not safe to be honest or critical at work'. That message would clearly undermine any value from the results.
• Employees should either all be included or randomly selected - it's unwise to allow employees to self-select for participation. When you allow self-selection, you'll generally find that less satisfied or very satisfied employees sign up for the group. Or, your more communicative employees are more comfortable expressing their opinions in a group. Your less communicative staff is guaranteed to be unrepresented.