It is pretty tough to find out that your employees have harsh and negative feelings about you and the way you manage them. Most humans take that kind of stuff personally and sometimes it hurts.
In a perfect world communication would rock and everyone would feel valued and heard and, if communications were truly working as they should, then you wouldn't need to survey employees because everything would be out in the open. In a perfect world bosses would regularly walk up to their employees and ask how it’s going and they would know if they liked their work or not. Conversely employees would feel confident and reassured and would speak the truth; there would be no need for secrets and problems would be solved in a healthy way.
The reality is communications are tough for everyone and chances are if you are considering surveying your employees it is because you know you have problems. A survey won't solve your problems but it is undeniably the most logical first step in solving problems because it will expose the issues and the barriers you are up against so at least you have the basis for an effective action plan.
Don’t be Fooled by Employee Survey Critics
It is a common complaint by survey critics to argue that if you have to promise anonymity to get your employees to complete a survey, this is a broken company. Does that mean that broken companies don’t deserve a chance to get whole again?
Not a chance!
A smart, expertly designed employee survey is going to at the very least, expose what is broken and, if it’s a truly valuable survey tool, it will also explain why because the survey will give employees the chance to express in their own words the stories about what’s happening to them. A valuable survey tool will also ask employees for their recommendations and ideas, it will ask them to put in their own words what do they like and not like and what would they do to change their organization. These questions alone can be worth the entire cost of the study itself because this insight could be the first time senior management gets an inside look at what their employees are feeling and thinking.
Does anonymity matter?
Absolutely. No one in their right mind is going to put themselves on the line if they think there will be any kind of retribution so it is imperative that surveys are 100% confidential. If a survey company cannot promise it, then they are not worth your time or money. Insightlink guarantees anonymity, and it is something our clients respect and tell us they value. Anonymity is a necessary and achievable requirement in an employee survey.
Why Bother?
Negative attitudes can have a direct impact on morale and productivity, so it is essential to be proactive as an employer and a boss. If you have any doubts about how likely your employees would tell you the truth to your face you have a communication problem and the best way to find out what is causing the problem may require you to survey employees to at least get the ball rolling in a positive direction.
Ways you can be proactive include being your own best investigative reporter. You have to be willing to look through the eyes of your employees and see what they see with an open mind. In that way an employee survey eliminates the chance of someone biasing the truth. Give your employees the chance to express themselves, in their own words and then ask a third party employee research and survey company to do the comprehensive analysis for you and what you end up with is a fair and honest assessment of what is happening in your workplace.
Here at Insightlink Communications, surveys are our specialty.
We have honed the process of survey development into an art. We know which questions to ask, when to ask them, and what to look for in the answers. We have seen companies increase their employee engagement and job satisfaction scores year after year through their own effort and commitment to making work a better pace for their employees.
You can be the kind of boss that you always wanted to be – a proactive boss, one that listens to the employees, hears their needs, and makes the necessary changes. Contact us today to learn more and let us help you be that kind of boss!
We invite you to go to out website and take our survey quiz at www.insightlink.com and call Lynn Gore at 866-802-8095 ext. 705 or write to us for more information at info@insightlink.com.
Cheers to happier employees!
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