What does your employees think about your business?

Employees are an integral part of an organization. They are the life blood of a company; its fortunes are entirely dependent upon their input. For any organization to excel, its employees must be motivated and feel appreciated for their contribution in the company.

There is a school of thought which says when employees feel appreciated, they tend to work harder and become loyal to the company. When your staff are happy, they will also transfer their appreciative mood when they are serving your customers. So it’s a win-win situation and the business will benefit immensely through repeat business from happy customers/clients who will continue to patronize its services/products.

Often times management decides on what they think will make their staff happy without consulting them. Some companies have employee of the month appreciation programs while others give different incentives to excelling employee as a sign of acknowledgement.

However, market research has found a disconnect between the type of appreciation employees want and what their managers think they want. A recent market research survey conducted by the International Association of Administrative Professionals found out that Managers ranked promotions and cash bonuses as the two most effective ways of recognizing employee accomplishments. On the contrary employees said they preferred an in-person thank-you or having a job well done reported to senior management.

In other words, though a decent bonus will always be a highly coveted form of recognition, employers often underestimate the degree to which workers value kind words delivered face to face. This sounds like an inexpensive way of showing appreciation to your staff, but the important aspect of this is thanking your employees regularly.

According to a survey in employee motivation spearheaded by Dr. Kenneth Kovach at George Mason University, the second biggest motivator for employees is recognition. Number one is interesting work- which requires an investment in staff training.

Having an open door policy where you discuss with your staff when they are doing well and when they need to up their game, provides a conducive channel through which various issues affecting the employee on a personal or business level will be discussed. Doing this will help them accept criticism better, when they are at fault as long as the feedback is specific.

What are the causes of employee dissatisfaction?

According to a survey conducted in 2008, by Probe Market research in Zimbabwe, found some key issues that cause employee disengagement. Some key nuggets are highlighted below:

• “My efforts are not valued. No-one tells me how I’m doing.”
• “I am criticized for mistakes, but never praised for doing a good job.”
• “I’m not making progress (learning anything) here.”
• “I never know what the rules are. They seem to change all the time.”
• “There’s no challenge any more.”
• “The boss is mean about little things but does not recognize my extra effort.”
• “ I’m not paid enough for what I do.”

It seems obvious, looking at this list, that all these things are easily remedied, and above all they come pretty much free of charge.

“How do you find out what your staff think?

The best form of getting information on what your staff thinks about your business is to do an independent Employee satisfaction survey. This is the best way to collect unbiased views. Professional market research agencies will advise on the best way of conducting this kind of survey. In my next post I will look at critical market research areas where organizations can leverage to get the best out of their employees.