Conducting an Employee Satisfaction Survey or Employee Engagement Survey: 21 Reasons to Do It Now

Why Employee Engagement and Employee Satisfaction are Really Important to Your Bottom Line: 

Employee compensation is likely the number one or number two cost category at your organization. In a highly competitive world with continuous pressure on profit margins and the need to increase employee productivity and contain costs, anything your organization can do to get more done with the employees you have produces an immediate payback. If you can get more done with fewer employees, that is even better, especially if you can drive up sales and increase customer service and quality while containing employee costs. 

Fortunately, your employees have the answers. They know what it’s like to work at your company, what your customers are telling them about your company, and about your competition. You just need to ask your employees and they will tell you. They will also tell you how dissatisfied or satisfied they are working at your company, and how engaged they are and what can be done to increase their level of engagement. 

Your employees also know what needs to be done to increase your company's customer service levels, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, productivity, quality and profit, and what can be done to reduce potentially costly risks. 

While most companies are aware of the need to take action and make improvements to become more competitive, they often miss important hidden actions that can really make a difference for customers, employees and the bottom line. That's where employee surveys come in, uncovering the hidden information, suggestions and insight you need from across your organization. 

Highly satisfied employees are more engaged in their jobs, their productivity is higher and they do more to generate profit for your company. Company financials and other “hard data” measurements are missing important information and insight that can only be gathered by directly asking your employees. Employee engagement surveys and employee satisfaction surveys are the best, most cost-effective way to gather comprehensive information accurately from a large portion of your employees about how satisfied and how engaged they are, and what needs to be done to increase employee satisfaction and engagement. 

Employee Engagement Definition 

Your employees are engaged when they are fully committed, involved and enthusiastic about their jobs, your organization and your customers. 

·  Your engaged employees are able, willing and actually do contribute more to your organization’s success. 

·  Engaged employees regularly put effort into their work above and beyond what is expected of them. They go the extra mile. They eagerly and willingly work longer hours and focus their energy, inspiration, skills, intelligence and experience on achieving success for themselves and your company. 

·  Your engaged employees thrive when they are working in a supportive company culture. Their energy. inspiration and enthusiasm enhance your company’s culture. 

Are your employees really engaged? How do you know?: 

How many of your company’s employees are highly engaged, how many are somewhat engaged and how many are disengaged? Employee engagement surveys and employee satisfaction surveys measure employee satisfaction and engagement levels and provide actionable information for driving employee engagement to significantly higher levels. Assessing employee engagement levels and then taking action to shift somewhat engaged and disengaged employees up the curve will significantly increase employee and company performance. 

Which is the right survey approach for your organization, employee engagement surveys or employee satisfaction surveys?: 

It’s possible for employees to be satisfied but not engaged in their job, and it’s also possible for employees to be engaged while not being satisfied. Therefore the best approach is conducting surveys that include both employee satisfaction and employee engagement issues. 

21 Reasons to Conduct an Employee Satisfaction Survey / Employee Engagement Survey (aka Employee Opinion Survey): 

When action is taken based on the survey findings, employee satisfaction surveys and employee engagement surveys generate significant bottom-line benefits and a very strong payback. Here are 21 reasons to conduct employee surveys now: 

1. Gathering employee feedback that either validates what company leaders think they know about their organization, or identifying hidden problems and opportunities, and possible solutions 

2. Increasing employee engagement in their jobs and with customers 

3. Identifying quality and customer service shortfalls and what can be done to fix these problems 

4. Gathering information and insight for creating a roadmap for making breakthrough improvements 

5. Assessing employees’ awareness and understanding of your organization’s vision, mission and values 

6. Learning how employees feel about your senior leaders, their leadership effectiveness and the direction in which they are taking your company 

7. Learning how employees perceive their manager/supervisor and what it is like to work for them (approachability, fairness, leadership effectiveness, etc.) 

8. Identifying specific process and technology problems and deficiencies and their impact on customers and employees, including suggested solutions from employees 

9. Focusing managers' attention and energy on areas with the highest priority and the largest payback 

10. Identifying communications problems within and across organizational units, a significant cause of dissatisfaction and poor performance 

11. Sending a message to your employees that you care about them and their opinions, and that you are willing to take action based on what they are telling you 

12. Strengthening the culture of teamwork, collaboration and change 

13. Enhancing your organization’s "employer of choice" reputation, enabling hiring of better employees 

14. Identifying reasons for and reducing costly employee turnover 

15. Avoiding costly discrimination and abuse law suits 

16. Learning about problems with execution and compliance with your company’s performance management system 

17. Making better, more informed decisions based on comprehensive feedback from employees 

18. Facilitating innovation and smart risk-taking 

19. Identifying ways to increase the company’s focus on external and internal customers 

20. Reducing the “People Performance Gap”, the costly gap in performance between the most and least effective employees performing each job in your company 

21. Establishing important baseline employee survey information that can be used to track progress and changes over time from annual employee surveys