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What Employees are Experiencing, Thinking and Feeling — Employee Satisfaction Surveys & Employee Engagement Surveys

Employee Satisfaction and Employee Engagement Matter to Companies – Here’s Why

Employee satisfaction is a key driver of employee engagement, and employee engagement in turn is a key driver of customer satisfaction and loyalty, employee retention, productivity, sales, overall organizational performance and profit.

Employee satisfaction surveys and employee engagement surveys are the best way to accurately learn about what your employees are experiencing, thinking and feeling. These are the experiential and psychological factors that strongly influence employee behavior, and employee behavior can result in low or high levels of customer satisfaction, employee and customer retention, productivity, product and service quality, competitiveness, profit and growth.

While employee behavior is clearly reflected in the bottom line of all organizations, company financials and other “hard data measurements” do not actually assess employee behavior or what is driving employee behavior. Further, “hard data” measurements do not gather employee perceptions, opinions, feelings and suggestions.

Employee satisfaction surveys and employee engagement surveys are the best and most cost-effective way to gather and efficiently report information, insight and suggestions from all of your employees on an anonymous basis, ensuring that employees provide honest, comprehensive feedback without fear of retribution. Can any organization afford not to conduct employee satisfaction surveys / employee engagement surveys annually and take serious action based on the survey findings?

Identifying Outliers

Outliers are statistical observations that are markedly different in value from the others of the sample. Outliers are things that are situated away from or are classified differently from a main or related body. Quantisoft’s employee satisfaction surveys / employee engagement surveys identify outliers in companies and other types of organizations, including departments, products, processes and other important things that are rated very high or very low by employees.

The very highly rated outliers are the things that are your organization’s best practices, the things that are driving employee and customer satisfaction and engagement, and profit. They are the things that your organization should recognize for their excellence and focus on duplicating throughout your organization.

The very low rated outliers are the things that are eroding profit, driving away customers, tying up employees resolving recurring problems and hurting your organization’s reputation. Outliers often include identification of risks that can significantly hurt your company. They are the things your organization needs to work on to significantly increase employee and company performance.

Your Employees Have Lot’s to Say! Are You Listening? — What Employees are saying in Employee Satisfaction Surveys and Employee Engagement Surveys conducted by Quantisoft

Could the following comment have come from an employee in your organization? It actually came from a sales person that sells sophisticated equipment, working at a large company that designs, builds, sells and services the equipment in North America, Europe and Asia.

“Everyone sits in their cubicle either protecting their piece of turf or covering their own tails totally incapable of making a decision that could serve a customer or help get an order”

During the deep recession, many companies have laid off significant numbers of employees, reduced or eliminated salary increases and bonuses and matching contributions to retirement plans, and they have cut back on employee benefits, including medical insurance. Companies have also been reducing expenditures on marketing, IT hardware and software and other things that bring in business and make the organization more efficient. Many employees are in fear of being laid off and they resent the cutbacks in compensation, benefits and business expenditures.

As a result of all of these cutbacks, Quantisoft has been seeing lower levels of employee satisfaction and employee engagement in many of our employee satisfaction and engagement surveys. More employees are commenting on their dissatisfaction and some are saying they are planning to look for a new job as soon as the job market opens up again.

Here are some of the other things we are seeing in employees’ comments in employee satisfaction surveys and employee engagement surveys:

1. Communications within and across departments and business units needs improvement

2. Communications from senior management filtered by middle managers and supervisors

3. Mission, vision and values not communicated effectively and not executed consistently across organizations….. Unclear company direction, short-term focus

4. Poor leadership

5. Corporate culture that is not supportive of innovation, asking for and listening to employees’ ideas, empowerment and decentralized decision making

6. Internal turf battles, workplace conflict, excessive politics and inward focus

7. Verbal abuse and occasional physical abuse

8. Insufficient coordination, teamwork and cooperation between business units with inadequate companywide focus on customers

9. Some managers that are “managers from hell”….. very difficult to work for, exhibiting favoritism and biases

10. Cumbersome, inefficient processes and business practices

11. Inadequate focus on quality and customer service

12. Employees not having the tools and information they need to perform their job effectively (e.g. slow PC’s and networks, lack of access to company databases from the field, mission critical enterprise software such as SAP, Oracle and Sales Force Dot Com not working effectively several years after initial implementation, now supplying smart phones and laptops to field sales force when the competition does, etc. etc. etc.)

13. Some companies barely using the technology solutions they are selling when it would enhance their own employees’ and company’s performance

14. Inconsistent adherence to the performance planning and measurement process…..some managers not preparing & conducting performance reviews, inaccurate, incomplete and unfair information included in performance reviews…..compensation changes not based on performance reviews

15. Inadequate training, development and mentoring

16. Inadequate orientation for new employees

17. Perceived discrimination based on age, race and gender

What’s on the Minds of Your Employees – Final Thoughts

Many senior executives think they know what’s on the minds of their employees. While some may have a good feel about their employees’ feelings, perceptions and opinions, many others are only guessing and have very limited information and insight. Yet as demonstrated in this article, accurately knowing what is on the minds of your employees is critical for making better business decisions, increasing employee engagement and performance, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty, and boosting sales and profit. Employee satisfaction surveys and employee engagement surveys are the best way to identify employees’ feelings, perceptions, opinions and suggestions from across your organization at a very low cost. There is every reason to conduct employee surveys annually and to make sure the findings are acted on.

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Conducting an Employee Satisfaction Survey or Employee Engagement Survey: 21 Reasons to Do It Now

Why Employee Engagement and Employee Satisfaction are Really Important to Your Bottom Line: 

Employee compensation is likely the number one or number two cost category at your organization. In a highly competitive world with continuous pressure on profit margins and the need to increase employee productivity and contain costs, anything your organization can do to get more done with the employees you have produces an immediate payback. If you can get more done with fewer employees, that is even better, especially if you can drive up sales and increase customer service and quality while containing employee costs. 

Fortunately, your employees have the answers. They know what it’s like to work at your company, what your customers are telling them about your company, and about your competition. You just need to ask your employees and they will tell you. They will also tell you how dissatisfied or satisfied they are working at your company, and how engaged they are and what can be done to increase their level of engagement. 

Your employees also know what needs to be done to increase your company’s customer service levels, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, productivity, quality and profit, and what can be done to reduce potentially costly risks. 

While most companies are aware of the need to take action and make improvements to become more competitive, they often miss important hidden actions that can really make a difference for customers, employees and the bottom line. That’s where employee surveys come in, uncovering the hidden information, suggestions and insight you need from across your organization. 

Highly satisfied employees are more engaged in their jobs, their productivity is higher and they do more to generate profit for your company. Company financials and other “hard data” measurements are missing important information and insight that can only be gathered by directly asking your employees. Employee engagement surveys and employee satisfaction surveys are the best, most cost-effective way to gather comprehensive information accurately from a large portion of your employees about how satisfied and how engaged they are, and what needs to be done to increase employee satisfaction and engagement. 

Employee Engagement Definition 

Your employees are engaged when they are fully committed, involved and enthusiastic about their jobs, your organization and your customers. 

·  Your engaged employees are able, willing and actually do contribute more to your organization’s success. 

·  Engaged employees regularly put effort into their work above and beyond what is expected of them. They go the extra mile. They eagerly and willingly work longer hours and focus their energy, inspiration, skills, intelligence and experience on achieving success for themselves and your company. 

·  Your engaged employees thrive when they are working in a supportive company culture. Their energy. inspiration and enthusiasm enhance your company’s culture. 

Are your employees really engaged? How do you know?: 

How many of your company’s employees are highly engaged, how many are somewhat engaged and how many are disengaged? Employee engagement surveys and employee satisfaction surveys measure employee satisfaction and engagement levels and provide actionable information for driving employee engagement to significantly higher levels. Assessing employee engagement levels and then taking action to shift somewhat engaged and disengaged employees up the curve will significantly increase employee and company performance. 

Which is the right survey approach for your organization, employee engagement surveys or employee satisfaction surveys?: 

It’s possible for employees to be satisfied but not engaged in their job, and it’s also possible for employees to be engaged while not being satisfied. Therefore the best approach is conducting surveys that include both employee satisfaction and employee engagement issues. 

21 Reasons to Conduct an Employee Satisfaction Survey / Employee Engagement Survey (aka Employee Opinion Survey): 

When action is taken based on the survey findings, employee satisfaction surveys and employee engagement surveys generate significant bottom-line benefits and a very strong payback. Here are 21 reasons to conduct employee surveys now: 

1. Gathering employee feedback that either validates what company leaders think they know about their organization, or identifying hidden problems and opportunities, and possible solutions 

2. Increasing employee engagement in their jobs and with customers 

3. Identifying quality and customer service shortfalls and what can be done to fix these problems 

4. Gathering information and insight for creating a roadmap for making breakthrough improvements 

5. Assessing employees’ awareness and understanding of your organization’s vision, mission and values 

6. Learning how employees feel about your senior leaders, their leadership effectiveness and the direction in which they are taking your company 

7. Learning how employees perceive their manager/supervisor and what it is like to work for them (approachability, fairness, leadership effectiveness, etc.) 

8. Identifying specific process and technology problems and deficiencies and their impact on customers and employees, including suggested solutions from employees 

9. Focusing managers’ attention and energy on areas with the highest priority and the largest payback 

10. Identifying communications problems within and across organizational units, a significant cause of dissatisfaction and poor performance 

11. Sending a message to your employees that you care about them and their opinions, and that you are willing to take action based on what they are telling you 

12. Strengthening the culture of teamwork, collaboration and change 

13. Enhancing your organization’s “employer of choice” reputation, enabling hiring of better employees 

14. Identifying reasons for and reducing costly employee turnover 

15. Avoiding costly discrimination and abuse law suits 

16. Learning about problems with execution and compliance with your company’s performance management system 

17. Making better, more informed decisions based on comprehensive feedback from employees 

18. Facilitating innovation and smart risk-taking 

19. Identifying ways to increase the company’s focus on external and internal customers 

20. Reducing the “People Performance Gap”, the costly gap in performance between the most and least effective employees performing each job in your company 

21. Establishing important baseline employee survey information that can be used to track progress and changes over time from annual employee surveys

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