subject: Using The Employee Attitude Survey [print this page] The employee attitude survey is a management tool business owners or managers use to learn about the views and opinions of their employees on issues pertaining to the company and their role within the organization. It is both a methodology and a process to help management understand the different needs of the organization from the perspective of the employees. It is done by creating online questionnaires or conducting interviews. They may be undertaken occasionally to take the pulse of the workforce with regard to a specific concern like the implementation of a new policy. These surveys may also be done regularly to measure employee morale and identify new areas that need resolution so they can be included in the next planning activity.
Benefits of Using Employee Attitude Surveys
The employee attitude survey discloses how employees feel towards the company and reveals the causes of several problems such as high absenteeism, fast turnover, conflicts and disputes within the organization, and low employee satisfaction. From the online survey results, management can determine the steps necessary to address those issues, improve employee morale, and increase productivity.
Going directly to the employees to ask what they think can help management assess the results of past and present activities, the impacts of certain decisions, and the effectiveness of policies and practices. Lessons can be extracted from the employees responses to serve as material bases for future efforts on planning and strategy development.
Employee attitude surveys provide information on the sources of morale and guide management on how best to motivate employees, stimulate dialogues, promote commitment, and improve job satisfaction. They also enable the company to respond promptly to changing circumstances in the workforce and maintain control by giving indications on how employees are likely to react to any changes management implements.
How to Do an Employee Attitude Survey
While the in-house HR department may be qualified to implement the employment attitude survey, many companies prefer to outsource conducting the survey and data analysis to third party providers that can provide the expertise and objectivity for an unbiased interpretation of the findings. Besides, these providers have special software to help them process the data faster and better.
Specific areas typically covered in an employee attitude survey are the employees career plan, current job position, the climate at work, training and development, organization design, culture in the company, management and style, sources of stress, and what gives rise to satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
Even if your company is small and you believe that you can undertake the employee attitude survey, it is still best to let the professionals handle it for you. While templates for the questionnaire are available online, you still have to deal with the possibility that your employees may not be so truthful in answering the questions. They know you will be reading their responses and you may be able to identify them in the process. Then there is the aspect of your capability and patience to go through the different phases of the survey that are necessary to derive an accurate reading of your employees attitude.
An employment attitude survey is not a simple exercise of asking questions and tabulating the responses. It goes through several stages and involves a number of interviews. There are pilot interviews done to develop the questionnaire which, in turn, is first subjected to a test-run and refinement before being administered to all the employees. After the survey, there is still a need for post-survey interviews to provide the qualitative information that will support the survey data. It is only after a statistical analysis of the survey results and close scrutiny of the responses to the post-survey interviews that the final report is made.
Implementing employee attitude surveys is a difficult and painstaking process; it is not cheap either. Nonetheless, many employers invest on the activity because it offers many long-term benefits. You too can discover a lot of untapped opportunities by using this management tool.
