Do your employees love working for you or are they just putting on a good show?
According to a Gallup survey of the American workplace, 63% of employees are unhappy with their jobs, while 24% of workers actively hate their jobs. Combine these two numbers and just over 1 out of 10 workers in the U.S. actually love their job.
The best way to learn how your employees really feel about your company is to ask them. An annual employee satisfaction survey is an efficient way to gauge how happy your employees are with your work environment and culture. At Jacobson, we hold a yearly company survey to determine how our employees are faring, and to see if there are major issues that we need to address.
The key to implementing a successful employee engagement survey is making sure that everyone is on board. Unless your leadership and management teams are committed to evaluating the results honestly, and executing changes, conducting a satisfaction survey is going to be ineffective and could leave you worse off. Make sure your workforce is aware of seriously you take their feedback. Send them an introductory email outlining why you are doing a survey, assuring them that all responses are anonymous, and reinforcing the company’s dedication to making changes based on their feedback.
Develop your questions around areas of concern. Are you looking for insight on managerial relationships? Ask your employees if they are inspired by their managers, or if they feel like management does a good job of communicating and sharing information. Want to gauge how effective your professional development program is? Ask about training opportunities and whether employees feel that they are supported in their development and advancement.
Once the results are in, share them with your staff. Did the survey pinpoint any problem areas or places where your organization may need some improvement? Remember to embrace employee feedback and don’t let negative comments get you down. Each comment is an opportunity to change and grow. Engage your employees by letting them participate in the solutions.
Here at Jacobson, we create cross-organizational committees to help craft specific solutions, bounded by well-defined project charters, to address key areas where there is needed improvement. Throughout the past years, these committees have helped us implement some significant changes including: the implementation of casual Fridays, the development of an internal social media network, the creation of a formal career development process, implementation of an education reimbursement program, and many other significant changes.
Repeat your survey on an annual basis to see your progress. These year-to-year comparisons provide insight into areas that still need work and are a great way to assess the effectiveness of your improvement initiatives. If your organization can focus on creating a welcoming and open environment that fosters employee satisfaction, success will surely follow.
Does your company conduct employee satisfaction surveys? How have the results of these surveys changed your company culture?
