Well-trained, quality employees are one of your company’s greatest assets. Measuring your employees’ perceptions of your organization on a regular survey cycle can help you to reduce turnover rates and avoid costly training of new employees.
Knowing your employees’ perceptions about training and policy issues such as safety, discrimination, and harassment can provide you with the information you need to proactively educate employees and, in some instances, prevent costly legal matters.
A number of key workforce trends have recently emerged, including:
- The number of new employees entering the workforce each year versus those retiring is declining steadily. America will experience its first net decrease in 2012.
- The national unemployment rates include 16-19 year olds, a group with rates typically three times higher than the national numbers. College graduates have unemployment rates that are typically half the national numbers.
- Across the country, 750,000 employees voluntarily quit their job every month.
What about the ROI? Let’s talk numbers:
- It costs approximately six months of wages to replace an hourly employee.
- It costs approximately 18 months of salary to replace a salaried employee.
When companies understands employees’ concerns, employees stay longer, and by avoiding costly turnover, the company is able to allocate more resources towards growth in areas such as marketing, sales, and customer service. What’s more, truly loyal employees will go the extra mile to make customers happy and recommend the organization to prospective employees.
The information garnered from employee satisfaction surveys gives you the opportunity to directly impact your bottom line and foster positive employee relations through:
- Identifying cost-saving opportunities
- Improving productivity
- Reducing turnover
- Curbing absenteeism
- Strengthening supervision
- Evaluating customer service issues
- Assessing training needs
- Streamlining communication
- Benchmarking your organization’s progress in relation to your industry
Employee Opinion Survey Q&A
Q: Will employee opinion surveys really work?
A: When we interview managers who conduct employee opinion surveys and ask them why they do it, most say they are listening to employees in hopes that they can improve the organization. Employees know reality. A manager can’t run an organization without having accurate feedback from the people who are actually serving the customers. If employees are to be effective and pleasant with customers, they need to feel good about the organization and the people with whom they work.
Q: Will employee opinion surveys give the management team an accurate picture of reality?
A: Management teams usually have a gut feeling about what is right and what could be improved in their organizations. What they do not have is objective, measurable data that provides an accurate picture of what their employees think is going well and what they think could be improved. It is one thing when a manager thinks there might be a problem with cross-departmental teamwork or the level of service that is provided to customers; it is quite another thing when the management team knows that 60 percent of all employees state that teamwork is low in the organization.
Q: Will management teams who take action based on employee opinion survey results see improved morale?
A: When management teams act on feedback from employee opinion surveys, they send out the message that they really do value the opinions of employees, which, in turn, has a positive impact on employee morale. If a management team, for example, were to decide to clarify their organization’s vision and goals based on employee opinion survey results, and then encourage employees to become a part of the process by asking them to provide input and ask questions, their actions would show their employees that what they say does make a difference, and morale would improve accordingly.
Q: Do employee opinion surveys help build relationships between managers and staff?
A: If there are relationship problems between certain managers and employees, the surveys pinpoint the precise areas that need improvement, as well as the depth of the problem. An employee opinion survey provides every manager with specific feedback about the department. If employee opinion survey feedback indicates that a manager is not holding employees accountable, for example, the manager may decide to meet with each employee on a monthly basis and give honest feedback on performance. When a manager is willing to use employee feedback to change behaviors, relationships almost always grow stronger.
Q: Can employee opinion surveys produce hard data that measures an organization’s progress?
A: By comparing their first survey with their most recent survey, any organization can determine how effectively they are improving. Keep in mind, however, that accurate comparisons can only be made when they are based on reliable, accurate, and comprehensible reports.
Q: Can employee opinion surveys help hold managers accountable for their actions?
A: When an organization has a manager who creates significant relationship problems within the organization, specific, quantitative, employee opinion survey data can be used to show the manager precisely which areas need improvement. Leaders can also use employee opinion survey results to require the manager be held accountable for his or her actions and request appropriate changes in behavior.
