As people rise through the ranks and enter the world of senior management it’s inevitable that they become a little detached from life on the office floor. There’s no way of staying on top of everything and it quickly becomes a case of reporting by numbers. No wonder then that one of the most common criticisms of management is that they’ve lost touch with the daily reality of life within the business.
A degree of employee engagement is absolutely essential in any kind of organisation. Staff are a company’s biggest cost, but it also its biggest asset. If they aren’t happy then morale will dip taking productivity with it. It’s important to know what is going on in each department and what people are really thinking and feeling.
An employee satisfaction survey is a hugely valuable exercise. It can be run once a year or once a quarter. The best way to find out what people are thinking is to ask them. In day to day interactions with managers people will harbour negative thoughts and feelings. It’s hard to vocalise discontent without feeling like a trouble maker. An anonymous employee satisfaction survey is the ideal way to tease information out of people that they would otherwise not feel comfortable raising.
Employee engagement like this gets to the heart of what is going on. The cold, hard numbers and reports only reveal so much. An exercise like this allows employees to talk about what is really going on.
Combine this with changes to the annual review to really get a handle on what is going on day to day in each team. An appraisal should be a two way exercise. It’s accepted practice that managers work with their team members to identify areas of improvement. In the same way the team can help their managers develop.
Armed with this information managers can improve their performance to help keep the workforce on side. It’s amazing how a 360 degree feedback exercise combined with a survey can make a massive difference to staff morale.
For more information please visit – www.peopleinsight.co.uk/employeeattitudesurveys.html