I am not happy. My chair has just broken and the printer has still not been fixed. The problem with the company is that it is going to the dogs. The boss really doesn’t seem to have a clue as to what is really going on.
There was a new person that started last month, no one bothered to introduce them and they were given a job that they had no clue how to do; why didn’t they ask me to look after him? I could have told them that a new set of drawings had been issued so even if he did know what he was doing the drawings he was using were obsolete anyway. I don’t know why I bother sometimes.
I went for a drink with some of the guys last night after work. I don’t know anyone who is happy and the lady in the Accounts department has told me that she has just about had enough and is going to ask for an immediate pay rise and if she doesn’t get it she will be off.
The management here just don’t have a clue, we are losing money through our inefficiencies and every time they come up with a new initiative they are so far off the mark that it just demonstrates how out of touch they really are.
I think I’ll ask for a pay rise, if Sally from Accounts can get one I can.
And on and on it goes.
When a company loses touch with their employees these are the sort of thoughts that start to play on the minds of individuals; the lack of appreciation, a broken chair, the blaming of ‘management’, even questioning the futility of what they are doing. Small problems rankle and a disparaging and destructive attitude develops. Can you be sure that it isn’t going on right now in your organisation?
What should be social events held outside the office become no more than a forum for complaints and negativity grows among people who feel unable to effect change. Dissatisfaction will often synthesise into a demand for an increase in remuneration, as though like a cheap fix more money will momentarily lessen the pain.
If ignored by management the concerns of this employee will inevitable find empathy with their colleagues own individual concerns, where the only common demand might well be a demand for an increase in remuneration, more paid holidays and a reduction in working hours, all of which will not fix the broken chair, ensure that new personnel are in future properly introduced, trained and managed nor help management identify areas of inefficiency.
Organisations have a habit of compartmentalising people, physically through offices, cubicles and workstations also in terms of responsibility. It can prove productive if there is effective and strong management in place to support this structure, but over time weak or inappropriate management can infiltrates the management chain and if it does it can be expected that cracks will start to appear.
From the top down all can appear rosy in the corporate garden as the weak and inappropriate manager reports that all is well in the engine room, oblivious to the fact that their coal stocks might be dwindling.
A very skewed view can be the result of relying on a limited number of indicators, just as a one eyed person finds judging distance difficult. Good management will therefore establish procedures that sample the mood throughout the organisation from different perspectives providing a rounded picture.
The benefits of establishing good, frequent and extensive communication channels are both direct and indirect.
Greater respect will be given to a senior management team that is known to have their ear to the ground and where they keep the middle management honest by knowing that middle managers can no longer shrug away the senior manager’s searching inquiry “How is everything going?” question with a non-committal “Fine”; It is my experience that if someone replies with “fine” you need to dig deeper and ask if they really know what is going on.
Most principals of an organisation will not have the luxury of spending time walking the floor and discussing the issues of individuals but through online employee surveys they can achieve the same benefits and almost become omnipresent.
Online surveys are the perfect mechanism for establishing effective communications between the employer and employee. Using a survey hosting service they can now be created and published with speed and ease.
Using the Internet and intranet surveys can be deployed in seconds, easily completed by employees and results can be displayed in real time allowing ‘problems’ and common themes of dissatisfaction to be identified early.
Online employee satisfaction surveys have the ability to get to the heart of an organisation, confirm not only that the engine room is working but that there is sufficient coal in the bunker.
There are considerable benefits to conducting online surveys, real issues can be identified and employees feel that they have a forum to express their concerns.
Although online surveys will not on their own resolve problems they do help identify the concerns of the employees and that in turn gives senior management the opportunity to fix the problems that need fixing, if people then do decide to leave the organisation they will hopefully be doing so for the right and not wrong reasons.
The grass will always appear greener on the other side but the underlying reasons for good people leaving an organisation are rarely purely monetary (although it is often cited as the reason) and more often to do with one or more of the following:-
- the working environment;
- a lack of accomplishment
- insufficient training and feedback;
- lack of a career path;
- over work;
- lack of trust and respect with their senior managers.
A well planned employer/employee communications programme that can identify the individual and common concerns of employees will give senior management the opportunity to address root problems and not just the symptoms of employee dissatisfaction, allowing them to demonstrate to their employees that they are not viewed simply as interchangeable parts that can be used for any job at hand.
Each individual organisation needs to customised their own employee survey so that it is relevant for them. To get an idea as to how effective online surveys can be try completing the sample employee satisfaction questionnaire, then view the results of the satisfaction survey and just think of the benefits to management being able to measure so easily the heart beat of the organization.