4Cs Blog: Happy Employees = Happy Customers

I don’t think that comes as a surprise to anyone. At work, trust is communicated in many ways but office policies are often the first line. When a new hire starts, company policies are the new rules, the guidelines for how everyone is supposed to behave at work. These are the rules managers are expected to enforce and make sure everyone is toeing the line.
It is one thing to have vacation day policies so that everyone is treated fairly, and those are policies most of us accept, but it is a brand new game when employers start keeping track of how often you use the washroom.

When Work is a Battleground

Trying to work with people who hate each other is damaging to the soul. Their negativity can infiltrate the minds and feelings of everyone they work with and, if left untreated, it could become infectious, spilling over into the lives of other coworkers and breeding an environment of discontent.

Instead of getting their work done effectively and efficiently, everyone gets swept up into the drama and then what?

It's a Good Thing Happiness is Contagious

People who are more satisfied with their workplaces are more likely to stick around longer and of course they will also be more productive. This pretty much sums up the employee engagement goal for most organizations. On the other side of the fence employees who are feeling down in the dumps won’t be as productive.

Why Length Matters

Pulse surveys are a current trend in employee research and like anything that says quick, easy and cheap, beware of gimmicks that overpromise. Pulse surveys can be appealing because they promise to get you the data you want fast without any real hassle for your employees, which sounds great, but on the other hand if you can’t act on the results, what’s the point?
Put this in another way- if you asked your partner if they were happy and they said no, than you might want to ask why. And if your partner’s answer to the 2nd question was that ‘you didn’t communicate’ then you might want to dig further and ask a 3rd question to find out more precisely, what do they mean exactly? Depending on the nature of the problem and how serious it is, you might even want your partner to write it out in their own handwriting so you get the whole picture, the story behind the words.

And do not forget that the whole point of asking your partner these questions is because you want to know what they think of you and your relationship because you care what they think.

The same could be said about employee surveys.

Now you may not care about your employees in the same way you do your partner, but you are showing them that you care what they think when you ask their opinions.
And therein lies the problem with short surveys.

Could turn out to be what you needed to hear most

We are an employee research company and the truth is, sometimes employees tell us things that are so horrible, we wonder if we should be telling you. Of course, we give our clients every word their employees tell us but we don’t publicize negative comments because that would make us very untrustworthy and would be a fast way to lose business but we can tell you we have come across some pretty raw and disturbing comments….enough to make your hair curl!

Bad bosses happen but as Liz Ryan eloquently points out in her recent article ‘Is it My Fault My Boss is a Jerk’, until you see your part in your dismal work situation, nothing will change. You may not like to think you chose your boss, but by accepting that job and staying in that job, you actually did choose your ‘jerk’ boss. So the key is to learn from this choice to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

About

Recent Posts

Favorite Links