Why Employee Satisfaction and Exit questionnaires are Important

If a business strives to become more streamlined and productive there needs to be acknowledgement that such efforts may not bare any fruit if the results of their initiatives cause among the workforce widespread dissatisfaction and a high turnover of staff. Organizations that have a highly motivated workforce can benefit enormously and having a workforce that is both motivated and productive should not be regarded as being mutually exclusive to one another.

If problems are left unresolved then companies run the risk of alienating their employees and events can then cause employee frustrations to boil over resulting in managers finding themselves on the back foot, faced with problems that cannot be ignored.

Ideally employers would take time to understand the needs of their employees and learn from their experiences of working on the front line, but employers are often themselves tied up day to day fighting their own fires.

Online surveys provide employers with an effective and affordable method by automating the process of collating the information and storing it in a format that allows for real-time analysis supplying the management with the intelligence required to achieve staff satisfaction and high productivity.

Unproductive & dissatisfied

There are many reasons why employees may be dissatisfied with their job and more often than not staff frustration is channelled into a demand for higher salaries and less hours. Employers who tackle these issues head on, making it all about salary and hours, will often find themselves dealing with the symptoms and not the root cause.

It’s not just about the money

The following are the most common problems to achieving productivity, none of which are likely to be resolved by increasing salaries or reducing hours:-

• Insufficient training
• Out of touch management
• Dated working methods
• Lack of proper tools and equipment

Numerous studies have shown that salaries are rarely the most important priority for employees and providing an employer is paying a fair rate they would be fundamentally wrong to think that paying higher salaries is a panacea to all employee problems.

Take the case of a single mother who is juggling a full time job with the need to look after three children. Out of frustration she may demand more money so that she feels that she is able to cope where a better solution, for both her and the company, may be more flexible working hours.

It is about communication

It is in any organization’s interest to encourage communication. Without good communication between personnel and management, or where management wait until problems are raised, management may assume that they have a content workforce when in actual fact the opposite is true. It only takes one small problem and one disgruntled employee to feel aggrieved for an entire workforce to develop a destructive ‘them and us’ attitude.

Improving communication

Ideally employer and employee would meet one on one but in practice this would seem practical only for very small organizations.

Regular meetings between management and worker representatives are good in theory but they often become talking shops and can begin to lose their edge as the participants become familiar with one another and the forum runs the risk of being hijacked by the more extrovert personalities.

Suggestion boxes are useful but can be viewed as token efforts by management as they wait for personnel to highlight a problem.

Newsletters can be useful, but their main purpose is generally to inform and not discuss issues.

Maintaining the initiative

Conducting employee satisfaction surveys on a regular basis you are able to ask each employee specific questions and present a pro-active management initiative where the whole workforce can be consulted on various issues. Surveys are able to provide a level playing field between the quieter and more vocal employees.

Consultation should not be seen as a sign of weakness, a confident manager will often take counsel from others before making a decision. By issuing a survey the employer is able to keep the initiative and tackle problems from a position of strength as opposed to waiting for problems to manifest and then possibly develop out of proportion.

If a small problem is left unresolved it could lead to a situation where a minor problem might just break the camel’s back and the mood of the employees change over night from positive to negative.

It’s easy and quick

For most organizations online surveys represent a proactive and low cost solution. They are quick to design and for many companies, where the majority of personnel have desktop computers, they are quick to deploy direct to the individual.

Where not all of the personal have access to a computer there are various options available that will allow you to accommodate their responses such as providing a shared computer, conducting telephone surveys or as a last resort, a hardcopy survey where the hard-copy responses can be added to those who competed the survey online.

Job satisfaction

There are combined elements that will contribute towards an employee’s job satisfaction, including company ethics, working methodology, ethos and environment to having decisive and effective management. Job satisfaction brings benefits through improved motivation and productivity from a workforce that feels that they are treated as individuals and not a commodity item.

Educate and inform

Online surveys can be used to educate and disseminate information on to the workforce, ensuring that the ‘message’ is consistently delivered and does not suffer from the Chinese whisper phenomenon where a message can become distorted as it is passed on.

An online survey can explain a difficult situation to the employees and get valuable feedback as to the best solution. It is rare in this situation that the workforce would appear negative and more likely that they will feel informed and empowered that might in itself turn a potentially negative problem into a positive challenge that unites the workforce.

Exit surveys

Exit surveys are an excellent way of ensuring that when personnel leave an organisation they are leaving for the right reasons and not due to reasons that if appreciated earlier could have been addressed and resolved by management. Although identifying a problem may not prevent a person leaving it could solve an unappreciated issue that may, if left unchecked, result in other key personnel also leaving.

For a Sample Employee Satisfaction Survey:- Employee Satisfaction Survey Template

For a sample Employee Exit survey:- Employee Exit Survey Template