Employee Survey White Papers

Anything Is Possible - Conducting employee surveys is the only way to tap into powerful information that can mean the difference between the success and failure of your company. Why do we see these links between employees, customers, and profits? They are connected because employee attitudes about their jobs and the company are manifested in employee behavior. PDF

A Step in the Right Direction - Conducting employee and customer surveys provides insight into the attitudes and perceptions of the people driving the success of your company. This knowledge, used in the proper way, provides empowerment and points you in the right direction for success. PDF

360 Degree Feedback - The 360 degree feedback has taken hold across America in organizations large and small. In fact, research indicates that over 90% of Fortune 1000 companies use some type of multi-source feedback. PDF

Bridging the Gap: From Mediocrity to Excellence - In order to "bridge the gap" between where your company is now and where you would like it to be you must first have a goal. Why? How will you know the path to take if you don't know where you are going? PDF

A Tale of Two Companies - Company A was the best of companies; Company B was the worst of companies. Research has shown repeatedly that the attitudes and behaviors of employees influence the attitudes and behaviors of customers. PDF

The Top 5 Reasons Employees Hate Their Jobs - For every reason to like a job, there may be an equal and opposite reason not to like it. Recent surveys have shed light on just how disgruntled Americans are with their jobs, and it's not pretty. PDF

The Proof is in the Profits: Employee Surveys and ROI - You must make an investment not only to start a business, but also to maintain it. Once a business is established you must continue to invest by spending money on supplies, advertising, and people. PDF

Five Ways to Weatherproof the Workplace in an Economic Downturn - In bad times - and good - employees want to be recognized as individuals, shown appreciation, and be given opportunities to grow. Here are five little or low-cost ideas to keep the staff focused when the economy is bubbling over with bad news. PDF

The Genetic Code for Business Success - Just as physical scientists have mapped the human genome, organizational scientists have mapped the genetic code for business growth and success. PDF

Mission Statements: Is Yours Just Ink On Paper? - A mission statement is a call to order within the corporate proving ground. It is a statement that initiates action, formulates direction, and maintains key core values for all within the organization to follow. PDF

Building a Successful Business through People - Our businesses can have a great foundation, a great product or service, and still fail to thrive. Why? Because there is another essential element. What is it? People. PDF

A Culture of Levity at Work - Business in this tough economy is littered with business closings, pay cuts, low morale and lay-offs. Budgets have been slashed and benefits or perks taken away. Now might be a good time for everyone to lighten up at work. PDF

The Truth about Motivating Employees to be More Productive - Employee satisfaction is stressed as one of the most important drivers of continuous improvement and satisfied customers in most classical total quality management (TQM) literature. PDF

What is your temperature? - We all want our companies to be healthy. But in determining whether our companies are healthy we don't always gather enough information or focus on the right information. PDF

Surveys Can Heal Companies Plagued With Bad Management - Poor management doesn't just drag down employee morale; it has consequences on the bottom line. Through the use of employee surveys, senior management can diagnose the problem, identify the poor supervisors, and make sure profits and productivity stay on course. PDF

Using Scientific Research to Understand Employees and Increase Profits - Not only is research an exciting process of discovery but, when properly conducted and applied in business, it also leads to increased profits. Conducting scientific research is like reading or watching a mystery. PDF

When It Comes to Employee Morale, Office Politics Can Be Politically Incorrect - Office politics can be difficult to define, but one thing is certain: there's no getting around them. For some, mastering office politics is the key to their careers. Others would like to avoid them altogether. And the impact on employee morale, depending on whom you ask, can range from favorable to fatal. PDF

The Relationship between Employees, Customers, and Business Success - Wouldn't it be great if a magical crystal ball really existed that would reveal to you the secrets of what your customers want as well as the secret to keeping them returning to your business to increase profitability? PDF

Engaged or Disengaged? That is the question. - In today's difficult economic climate, many corporate executives are looking to cut unnecessary expenses and to avoid wasting resources. Our employees are a very valuable, but also costly, resource. Unfortunately, employees vary widely in their level of engagement in our companies. PDF

Making Employee Productivity a Slam Dunk - If the competition is doing more with less, then employee productivity may be the issue. Low-output workers indicate a serious problem within any organization, forcing companies to adapt innovative techniques to increase employee productivity. PDF

5 Factors That Affect Your Employee's Productivity - Happy employees are productive employees. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a consulting firm to figure that one out. PDF

4 Steps to Obtaining WOW! Results from Employee Research - Organizations are made up of many individuals and when a company tries to implement changes on a macro level, the individuals within that company may resist. But change is a necessary part of survival in today's dynamic environment and when a company commits to making positive changes the rewards can be great. PDF

Taking Your Business to 'Best in Class' Success - There is not a single company in existence that cannot learn better ways of doing things through the benchmarking process. If used properly, benchmarking is a powerful tool that can and should be used more often by organizations in all industries. Benchmarking is not a fad; it is a tested methodology that is being used by some of the strongest companies to achieve breakthrough performance and a sustainable competitive advantage. PDF

Social Networks Benefit Employees and Customers - Social networking has caused a fundamental and transformational shift in the way that people are connecting, knowledge is being shared and information is flowing. About 50% of large companies and 75% of small ones (fewer than 500 employees) are using social media of all types. PDF

10 Things Employees Dislike Most About Their Employers - Our careers have a major impact in defining our lives. The average full-time employee spends close to 48 hours a week on the job, and it's not always because they're in love with what they do. There are a number of things employees dislike about their employers. Here are 10 of the most common. PDF

Do You Ignore the Advice that you Pay to Receive? - Why do individuals ignore advice? Is it due to stubbornness, pride, or lack of confidence in the person giving the advice? The latter sometimes happens when we are young adults, especially when the advice is from our parents. It is funny how our parents get smarter and wiser as we get older! We learn for ourselves how wisdom can come from experience. PDF

7 Common Misconceptions Employers Have About Their Employees - Most companies like to think they have their finger on the pulse of employees. But the fact is, when it comes to what employees want from their work experience - recognition, respect, trust, fair pay and a flexible schedule - many employers are clueless. There are many common misconceptions employers have about their employees. Here are seven major ones. PDF

Why Conduct Employee Surveys? - Surveys represent the most effective way to secure an honest answer to: How did we do? More recently, these surveys have made their way into the workplace, providing a method of gauging employee attitudes at the office. PDF

Forecasting and Preventing Turnover to Increase Profit - There are many costs involved in doing business. One of these costs is turnover. When employees leave the organization, they represent investments that are no longer reaping dividends. PDF

Employee Engagement in Trying Economic Times - Most employees recognize that their job stability is directly tied to the success of the company. As such, we expect motivation and productivity to increase. PDF

The Keys to Increasing Employee Performance - Incentives to motivate employees AND front-line managers are extremely important to overall company performance. A case study is presented that demonstrates NBRI's expertise in introducing such incentives and improving the performance of the company. PDF

Integration of Employee, Customer, and Financial Data - It is well known that high employee satisfaction contributes significantly to high customer satisfaction, which drives intent to return, and therefore, financial results. PDF

Employment Trends Give Workers Shot of Confidence - Bullying bosses are in the sights of a handful of legislators, who contend that employees should be allowed to sue their supervisors for being rude, abusive, obnoxious, or basically a combination of all three. At least four state legislatures - Vermont, New York, New Jersey and Washington - are considering bills that would allow employees to seek damages for having to endure an "abusive work environment." PDF

Surveys May Head Off Potential Suits - The American worker is brimming with self-assurance, and there are a host of good reasons. Unemployment continues to be low at 4.5 percent, while opportunities continue to grow as technological advancements and a global economy open new doors. PDF

Communicating to Employees - Change and Communication: You Can't Have One Without The Other. A Three-Step Staging Process is presented that should improve the effectiveness of any organization's communications. PDF

The Winning Employee-Customer Link - In recent years, many in the academic and popular business press have grabbed hold of a very intuitive realization: positive work attitudes and greater commitment and loyalty among employees all feed directly into greater customer satisfaction and loyalty. Why? PDF

Conducting a Survey In-House vs. Outsourcing - This White Paper discusses the advantages of outsourcing survey deployments rather than conducting them in-house. PDF

Benchmarking with the Best in Class: NBRI Norms - This White Paper discusses the strong value provided by utilizing NBRI Norms by assisting companies benchmark against "best in class" competitors. PDF

Root Cause Analyses - To turn massive amounts of information into action quickly and effectively, management needs to know the dominant, primary causal factors for the results of the study. The sole purpose of the root cause analyses is to identify the smallest number of issues that can be shown to drive, control, or predict the largest number of issues within an organization. PDF

HR Metrics for HR Strategists - This White Paper discusses important Human Resources (HR) metrics that should be gathered via employee surveys and statistical analysis. It goes on to discuss how this important information can be used as a strategic tool to improve the company. PDF

Soliciting Employee Feedback: Getting Results - Every human resource professional knows that a company is only as good as its employees. That's why it's so important to get their feedback via employee surveys and respond to their needs, their ideas and their suggestions and fast. It goes on to discuss important aspects of designing the employee survey and how best to deploy and analyze the survey results. PDF

Managing Teamwork - Via an employee survey of a large corporate client, NBRI identified four factors that influenced teamwork within workgroups. When these four factors were high, teamwork was high. When the four factors were low, teamwork was low. These factors are similar to what we have found in other organizations. PDF

Managing Job Satisfaction - Increasing job satisfaction is important for its humanitarian value and for its financial benefit (due to its effect on employee behavior). NBRI typically includes measures of job satisfaction in all of our employee surveys, and clear patterns have emerged. PDF

Managing Productivity - The importance of productivity is clear to all organizations. A case study is presented where a manufacturing company deployed an employee survey that identified five main influencers of employee productivity. PDF

Employer of Choice - Fairness - Employees want to be treated fairly, and it is important to do so. Most importantly, it is imperative to deploy employee surveys to determine how the employees feel their employer is doing. The consequences of fairness of pay and fairness of managers are examined. PDF

Employer of Choice - Opportunity - Our research and analysis of multitudes of employee satisfaction surveys has consistently shown that the degree of opportunity in the workplace affects employee attitudes and behaviors. PDF

Employer of Choice - Managing Coworker Relationships - Good coworker relationships reduce turnover and increase productivity. Organizations that maintain constructive interpersonal relationships benefit financially as well as culturally. Managing the five identified factors can help immunize your organization against reoccurring, disabling problems between people at work. PDF

Employer of Choice - Commitment - Committed employees are more likely to give your customers better service, they are willing to take the time to solve difficult problems, their work is of higher quality and they are more likely to stay with the organization. This case study presents an employee survey that identifies four main factors that influenced employee commitment. PDF

See what kinds of employee surveys these white papers apply to.