Getting the Right Information from an Employee Survey

The better the lines of communication that exist between an employer and employee, the better outcome one can expect from the business as a whole. A manager can sit down and talk to an employee and ask them questions about how they feel about the company. Unfortunately, in these face-to-face meetings, employees are likely to tell their managers what they feel their manager want to hear. Managers realize that these face-to-face inquiries are not exactly the best way to get a true picture of what employees think.

Employee engagement surveys are a better way of gauging the true feelings of an employee. This is especially the case if an employee is able to fill out the surveys in an anonymous way. This allows them to express the complaints they have, comment on the things that they enjoy about their job, and give constructive criticism that can really help managers make positive changes in a business.

The effectiveness of these employment surveys can be seen from the fact that more than 90 percent of companies use some form of survey to learn about their employees. Of course, for employment surveys to be effective, the right questions need to be asked.

Some of the traditional questions that are asked in former surveys include things like, does your manager care about you as a person? Or do you have friends at work? These questions do help to identify some concerns an employee might have, but they do not truly gauge whether or not an employee is content at their job.

Really, what employers should be concerned about is how well their employees understand the company’s goals. They should want to identify how committed an employee is to the company and to coworkers. They also want to make sure that their employees have the right capabilities to do the job. An employee who feels committed to the purpose of the business, who feels committed to the people around them, and who feels that they are adequately trained is a happy employee.

The goal should be to make sure that employees understand how they fit into the overall organizational structure of the company. Employees should feel like they have the ability to bridge the gap that sometimes exists between ideas and everyday implementation.

The marketplace is very competitive. People’s attitude toward work have changed. There are very few individuals who are looking to have a career that is going to last them for the rest of their life. They’re constantly looking for the next best thing. A properly worded employee survey will help managers identify things that they can do to keep their employees happy and retain good people.