What You Don’t Know May Hurt You: The Benefits to Employee Satisfaction Surveys

Many of our readers have shared laughs while watching the comedic movie, “Office Space”. Has the thought ever crossed your mind if you have a “Peter Gibbons” in your office? Realistically, employees at all levels struggle to provide feedback, particularly tough feedback. Closing the door to this feedback may negatively impact your company culture and bottom line in the long run. Creative Business Solutions has a solution to open the door and create a strategic approach to improved company culture: an Employee Satisfaction Survey.

Conducting employee satisfaction surveys within your workplace can help you gauge employee attitudes and perceptions about the culture of your organization, business practices, leadership/management, as well as an employee’s individual satisfaction with compensation and benefits and the roles and responsibilities of his/her position. Conducting an employee satisfaction survey provides a sense of inclusion for your employees and sends the message that you value their opinions. In addition, employee loyalty comes from employer loyalty and employees need to know that you will support them.

Following are three (3) benefits of conducting employee satisfaction surveys:

     1)  It can increase productivity. Allowing an employee the time to voice his/her concerns has great overall impact on an employee’s motivation and dedication, thereby reducing absenteeism because the employee is more engaged. However, it is important to consider that this benefit may backfire if the employee’s concerns are not promptly addressed or acted on.

     2) It saves time and money. Hiring a new employee is expensive when recruitment, training and workplace integration are involved. According to an article published by Christina Merhar with Zane Benefits, the cost to replace an entry-level employee averages to be sixteen percent (16%) of his/her annual salary; mid-level employees costs the company an average of twenty percent (20%) of their annual salary; and high-level or highly specialized employees, costs an average of up to two-hundred thirteen percent (213%) of their annual salary. These numbers are staggering and can negatively impact the company’s financials.

     3) It can uncover issues not readily apparent. An employee’s sense of anonymity can be directly affected if there are not options to provide feedback to his/her employer. Every organization has one or more employees who may feel uncomfortable voicing his/her concerns in person. The employee may feel this way for a multitude of reasons, such as intimidation and fear of being criticized or reprimanded. Administering an anonymous employee satisfaction survey can help the employee provide honest insight. If more than one feedback avenue is not available to employees, this can ultimately impact the organization negatively, as that employee may seek alternative means of employment.

Positive employer/employee relationships are imperative when considering the continued success of an organization. To maintain and strengthen this relationship, ask your employees what they need, listen to them and take direct action. Don’t forget to provide more than one avenue for lines of feedback.

Creative Business Solutions (“CBS”) specializes in ensuring each of our valued clients is operating at its full potential. Please call us today and we will be pleased to assist you with any strategic employee initiatives you may be exploring, including employee satisfaction surveys.

Sources:

https://www.questionpro.com/blog/the-3-benefits-of-employee-satisfaction-surveys/

http://work.chron.com/advantages-surveys-workplace-8212.html

http://www.zarca.com/Online-Surveys-Employee/benefits-of-employee-satisfaction-survey.html

https://www.zanebenefits.com/blog/bid/312123/Employee-Retention-The-Real-Cost-of-Losing-an-Employee