The Tribune

Employees need to have a voice in every company. We hear from them at the beginning of their engagement via the employee interview, but this is often the first and last time time this happens. There are also a few companies who insist that employees, upon resigning, complete an “exit survey” to determine the reason for their departure.

The conversation before, and at the end, of the worker’s time with the company is good, but what is missing is the dialogue during their career. We must ask: How often do companies ask for feedback from team members, and how do they obtain this information? How do they use this information to strengthen their company? Why even bother soliciting feedback from employees?

Here are a few of the potential benefits from employee surveys:

Benefit 1:A portal for feedback

Employee surveys provide a vehicle to collect feedback. The most cost efficient way of conducting these surveys is done online through e-mail. This is done via a simple list exchange of employee e-mail contacts.

Benefit 2:Opportunity for follow-up and discussion

Surveys provide the management team with an opportunity to create follow-up meetings and dialogue with teams. Although this is not as confidential as an online study, it serves as a follow-up item to take the next steps with the data. These follow-ups allow management to dig a little deeper into the survey findings.

Benefit 3:Measure levels of satisfaction

This is an obvious benefit but also crucial. By measuring satisfaction levels you will understand where your scores sit relative to competitors. It also serves as a great metric to track year-over-year to see what improved and what did not.

Benefit 4:Understand key improvement areas

This vital benefit identifies those core areas and factors that are important to employees, but also the ones they are less than satisfied with. These become priority action items for your management and human resources teams. It ensures that, post-survey, you will be spending your time on the items that matter most to employees.

Benefit 5:Break down results by management team

This helps identify which managers are doing well, and which are not, from the perspective of their subordinates. This type of data can also provide your company with unique training items and follow-up criteria that is manager-specific.

Benefit 6:Improves communication

Employee surveys are a great step to opening the lines of communication with employees. Since everyone has a chance to reply, employees can share all of the good and the bad feedback about the company. All in all, it is better to be aware of what employees think and need, rather than assume. If you do not ask you will never know.

Benefit 7:Show your employees you care

The simple act of reaching out and listening carries a lot of weight. It is a proactive approach to show you care. The tone is much different than reacting to employee complaints on a daily or monthly basis.

Employee surveys force companies to change, and are an excellent first step to shifting their culture. The responses are usually anonymous, and employees can freely share their thoughts. These surveys, then, help business proactively identify and address common problems in an anonymous forum.

NB: Ian R Ferguson is a talent management and organisational development consultant, having completed graduate studies with regional and international universities. He has served organsations, both locally and globally, providing relevant solutions to their business growth and development issues. He may be contacted at iferguson@bahamas.com.