When you are a business owner or senior manager, you generally acknowledge that a happy, satisfied population of employees will get you the best results. Putting in place measures to make sure your employees are treated fairly, trying to instill a positive working culture, and even providing perks and benefits they are likely to appreciate goes a long way toward making your business one people are happy to work for, and when people are happy with their employers they are more loyal, more productive, and willing to go the extra mile to help the company achieve its objectives.
Do You Really Know What People Think of Your Company?
However, from a senior position it can be hard to tell how well your attempts to create a great Company culture are being received, and to know what people within your organization truly think. This is why the business leaders on shows like Undercover Boss are always so surprised when they start interacting closely with people on the ground. It is unlikely you’ll be in close social relationships with people lower down the corporate ladder, or be someone people would approach with minor grievances or simple ideas to improve things. It can always appear that everybody is happy to bosses, even when there is actually a high level of employee dissatisfaction. This means that you need a way to gather metrics about how your employees rate their experience of working with you, along with suggestions they may have for making their lives better. Anonymous staff surveys can be the best way to do this.
Conducting Surveys
There are a few times when you should collect surveys. An annual companywide survey can give you a lot of data you can evaluate, and over time will let you see how culture is changing and whether new initiatives are achieving the desired results. It can also be a good idea to conduct exit surveys on employees leaving the company. These employees are most likely to be honest, and you can see if there is any correlation between staff turnover in your organization and working conditions or culture. Another good time to do surveys is with new employees a few weeks in, when they have completed induction. This can show you what people’s first impressions are like and also how good your induction processes are. Services like insightlink.com can help you easily conduct and manage staff surveys in a flexible way, so you can tailor both the questions and timing to your company.
Using The Information
Just doing the surveys is not enough. While it goes some way to show staff you are interested in what they think, if there is no action taken following surveys it can feel to them like a pointless exercise filling them out. Release a report when you have gathered the data showing what the results were, and then list action points you have taken away. Then, implement measures that relate to issues found in the surveys. Doing this shows that the surveys can lead to positive change.
Staff surveys are invaluable to leadership in large organizations, so make sure you have a good strategy for using them.
