No, we’re not
talking about those long and involved employee surveys. David Niu, founder of
engagement and retention consulting firm TinyPulse, formulated a far simpler
plan.
The program: Ask
employees a single question, via email, at regular intervals. The responses,
rendered anonymous by a tool offered by TinyPulse, gives organizations
immediate feedback on how workers feel about workplace issues large and small.
Sharon
Florentine, writing on the CIO blog, quotes Niu:
“I came up with
the idea that businesses should constantly have their finger on the pulse —
hence the name — of their employees,” Niu says. “Most companies do
[performance] reviews once a year, but businesses change more than once a year.
You don’t check your finances once a year. You don’t evaluate your business
strategy just once a year, so why do we put culture and people and their
engagement and satisfaction last?”
Three typical
queries:
1.
Name one process that, were it
eliminated, would make you more productive.
2.
How transparent is management?
3.
Please rate the quality of the
snacks in the kitchen.
And don’t just
dismiss that last question as frivolous. Florentine writes that one TinyPulse
client asked employees to name one thing about their office that really
bothered them, Niu says. The employees overwhelmingly agreed that the water
available for drinking was awful. One employee wrote, “The water tastes like a
toilet bowl!”
The client was
taken aback — the company had been working in the same office for three years
and nobody had mentioned how bad the water tasted — and put in a water filter.
Problem solved, potential morale killer eliminated.
The one-off
question approach is way simpler than a full-blown employee survey, Florentine
points out. A survey requires developing questions, evaluating responses and
then devising a plan to address the multiple issues raised. The whole process
can be daunting, especially for small companies.
Other areas to
explore
In another blog
post on Inc.com, Ilan Mochari took the three questions above, consulted some
employment experts and recent research and put together an expanded list of
questions employers might want to ask workers. Here it is:
1. Name one
process that, were it eliminated, would make you more productive. This is a
straightforward bureaucracy-buster. You know that if several employees cite the
same process, you’ve hit on a source of serious frustration.
2. How
transparent is management? It’s not to imply that you have to tell your
employees everything. What you’re trying to assess is whether employees feel
surprised or blindsided by your decisions — or if you’re inconsistent on
big-picture topics.
3. Please rate
the quality of the snacks in the kitchen. This may seem frivolous, but it
matters. Niu told Florentine that he asked it to TinyPulse’s employees, and he
learned that none of them liked the brand of pretzels he’d bring in every now
and then. “In and of itself, that’s not a huge issue — but if you’re in
management, and you don’t know these things, big or little, how can you fix them?”
he says.
4. Can you list
for me the factors that could contribute to your doing the best work of your
life? This question comes from Dr. John Sullivan, former chief talent officer
for Agilent Technologies. Sullivan notes that this — the “best work of your
life” question – -is the No. 1 retention factor for top performers.
5. Can you
highlight any recent recognition and acknowledgment that you have received that
increased your commitment and loyalty? This question also comes from Sullivan,
courtesy of a superb article on TLNT. The aim is to identify actions that make
employees feel appreciated.
6. How would you
assess your opportunities to grow and advance? There’s plenty of evidence that
a lack of advancement opportunities — or better advancement opportunities,
elsewhere — are why employees leave. Two-time founder Jason Lemkin stresses
that finding a growth path for all employees is one of his five biggest lessons
learned, when it comes to retention. Likewise, in a recent LinkedIn survey of
more than 7,500 employees who’d recently left their jobs, respondents cited
greater opportunities for advancement as the number one reason they took new
gigs.
7. How confident
are you in the leadership of this organization? In the same LinkedIn survey,
the number two reason respondents chose their new jobs was “better leadership
from senior management.” Beyond the retention benefits, learning if employees
lack faith in your leadership can only improve your performance.
Just one word of
caution about embarking on a program to gather employee feedback: If you’re
going to have the information, management must be on board to respond to the
answers you get. Finding out what’s really bugging your employees and then
ignoring what you learn is a sure recipe for disaster.
Source: hrmorning
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