HR Definitions

Interested in employee opinion? You should be.

Many management teams assume that they know what their staff are thinking.

They engage staff daily in the tasks relating to the achievement of work, but rarely take the time to discuss how the staff feel about a range of other factors that influence motivation in the workplace.

They assume that because they actually communicate daily, they know what people are thinking.

A good indicator that this phenomenon is at work is a high staff turnover. How high is too high? It is industry specific and is impacted by many factors, and because of that, easily rationalised.

Employees will readily give their opinions, but there are some dangers.

When employees take the time to highlight their concerns, they expect managers to act on those concerns.

If the employee opinions are collected and nothing changes, then this will be a de-motivating force in the workplace. But act on these opinions and employees will be motivated and will begin to deliver sustainable gains in productivity.

The periodic collection of employee opinions is an important management practice to view the current status of the view of employees, but also to monitor the trends in those opinions.

It aids in decision making about a range of operational and people management issues, and gives good insight into management practice generally.

Best practice in gathering employee opinions is to engage in periodic pulse surveys.

Climate Survey
Organisational Surveys/Organisational Health
Pulse Surveys
Surveys