Employee Surveys May Head Off Potential Suits. If the Boss Is Bad, Survey the Situation The legend of the bad boss has been chronicled throughout the ages, but the online revolution has shed new light on the issue – so much so that lawmakers are getting involved. Bullying bosses are in the sights of a…
Employees come in late or not at all. When present, their communication is poor and interpersonal relationships ineffective. Those who are present burnout by picking up the work left undone by those absent. Meetings start late and are not managed efficiently. Purchase requests are lost. Questions are asked, but really never answered; a question is…
The impact of your organization’s culture The importance of job productivity is clear to all organizations. Service organizations, manufacturing, high tech, even non-profit charities share the need to do more with less. Those who have ignored it are no longer competitive or possibly no longer in existence. Utilizing an employee survey can help you maximize…
Do you know your organization’s mission statement? Can you recite it word for word? Most would answer no to this question. But can you even summarize the general idea behind the mission statement? If the answer to this question is no, then what is the point of having a mission statement? A mission statement is…
No matter how old we are, how many jobs we have had, or the level of our position in the organization, the questions we have on the first day of work remain the same. Where do I park my car? Where do I put my stuff? Where are the bathrooms? Where can I get something to eat or drink? Where…
Have you ever witnessed someone having difficulty determining the answer to a puzzle? There are a number of different types of puzzles that people use to challenge and entertain themselves—jigsaw puzzles, crossword, and Sudoku puzzles, to name a few. People approach puzzles differently. With jigsaw puzzles, some people begin by sorting the pieces into two piles—pieces that…
Company A was the best of companies; Company B was the worst of companies. Both Company A and Company B recently conducted employee engagement surveys. These surveys enabled executives at each business to put their fingers on the pulse of their companies. Employee surveys are critical to business success. Research has shown repeatedly that the…
The next time you attend a meeting at work, take a look around the room. In what ways are those in the room similar? Chances are they are all part of the same workforce, having been hired to work for the same organization. They might work similar hours and work towards meeting the organization’s mission;…
The sole purpose of the survey root cause analyses process 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. Few survey research firms have the capability of determining an organization’s root causes because the capability stems from an intimate…
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. Hollywood has never been shy about dramatizing the bad boss versus beleaguered employee characters. From…
The situation: Your CEO has identified the need to gather information from multiple stakeholders while recognizing that your organization does not have the capability in-house to conduct such survey research. Thousands of survey research firms exist to help you with this. How do you ensure a fit between your organization and a survey research firm?…
Every human being is unique. Just like no two snowflakes are identical , no two people are alike. Each of us has a multitude of traits. These traits are polygenic (affected by many genes) as well as multifactorial (influenced by many factors). Thus, each of us is a product of the unique combination of genes…
There is a lot of truth to the saying that you have to spend money to make money. Many Americans dream of having their own businesses, but the majority never follow through with that dream. Why? A lack of resources and opportunities? For many, yes, but another predominant reason is… FEAR. They fear their investment…
For every reason to like a job, there may be an equal and opposite reason not to like it. In fact, there may be more than one reason. This statement may be playing fast and loose with Newton’s law of motion, but current research indicates that more people than ever before are unhappy with work.…
The keys to thriving at work are not just based on ambition, smarts, and playing office politics. According to recent research, how people succeed or fail can be based on the support and involvement they have with friends in the workplace. Abraham Lincoln once wrote that “the better part of one’s life consists of his…
RESEARCH People hear this word and their first response is a big YAWN. Add the word scientific in front of it and many enter a deep sleep. PROFITS Say this word and you have people’s attention. Let me tell you what is exciting about research: RESEARCH –> PROFITS Employee survey research is an exciting process…
In the life cycle of organizations, employee behaviors need to evolve. Behaviors that are appropriate in the growth phase of a company must adapt to meet current and future needs. Such was the case with Cobham Defense Systems in San Diego when I signed on as vice president of human resources. The company, now called…
From postcards on the table at your favorite restaurant to surveys tucked in with your prescriptions after a brief hospital stay, surveys represent the most effective way to secure an honest answer to: How did we do? Surveys also provide a method of gauging employee engagement at the office. Spending 40 hours or more every…
Developing a questionnaire seems easy, right? Decide what you need to know, write a bunch of questions and get people to answer them. What you need to know, is that the responses people give are affected by the way you word each item or question. Many problems arise and much information is rendered useless because…
Whether your business is academic, membership, general business, marketing, not-for-profit, for-profit, social, political, product or service related, you will most likely identify the need to conduct a survey at some point. The question becomes, do you do it yourself or work with a full service survey and market research firm? The answer is: it depends.…