If not repaired it doesn’t take long for a building with one broken window to quickly turn in to a building with a lot of broken windows. Fixing problems when they are small will prevent them from developing into more serious problems.
When considering the level of employee satisfaction the same is true. Dissatisfaction can spread like wildfire and in the blink of an eye you can have the type of morale problems that are notoriously hard to resolve.
To be confident that your employees are content you need to be aware of what their day to day problems are and you need to deal with them before they get out of hand. Keeping the initiative is vital and it is nearly always better to give a little and often.
This turns out be a vicious circle. Fixing problems when they are small is also when they are at their cheapest to fix. There is little advantage for the employer to wait until they are prompted by the employee to make urgent change, if they are proactive the employer can operate from a position of strength and that in turn will help maintain the respect that their employees have towards them. Employees like strong, confident management and a proactive approach generates respect not least because someone has taken the time to understand some of the employees’ issues.
Compare that with managers who are out of touch. They arrive late at a problem so they are on the defensive, and with their credibility eroded they have to concede to demands which in turn could lead to further and less reasonable demands. It is not big and it is not clever.
How then can an organisation monitor the morale of the employees without a big budget and an abundance of spare time?
Deploying online employee surveys would appear to tick all the right boxes. Online surveys are quick, easy and low cost. Surveys can be created in minutes and deployed in seconds, with the results compiled in real time; and by using email and websites they cost nothing to disseminate.
The ideal delivery mechanism is the corporate internet.
By linking through to an online survey website a company can regularly conduct surveys so they become part and parcel of the daily operations.
With the ability of an online survey to produce real-time results the mood of the workforce can instantly gauged, concerns highlighted both on a collective and individual level.
Companies can use survey results to expose problem areas and then use follow-up surveys to target exposed concerns. With good information managers are able to get to the root of specific problems and prepare a considered response.
By conducting regular surveys companies are able to address small problems before they grow into much bigger problems that are then more difficult to address.
It should not be forgotten that most employees appreciate being consulted and asking their opinion is not seen as a sign of weakness but an indicator of good decision making.
Once in a blue moon a manager’s problem can be solved with something that is quick, easy and won’t break the bank; that looks like a blue moon.
