Personnel concerns are at the forefront of business news today. Some talk about a “rush for talent.” Others are concerned with worker retention.
For a glimpse of the global scene, Gallup has released its State of the Global Workplace 2022 Report.
In some respects, the United States and Canada fare pretty well, with the “highest regional percentage of engaged employees; highest regional percentage of employees who say now is a good time to find a job; second highest regional life evaluation (percentage of employees who are thriving).”
North American employers will probably be less thrilled to learn that only 33 percent of their workers consider themselves “engaged” in their work. (Unfortunately, the figures for other world regions were still lower.)
Only 51 percent of North American workers said they could live “comfortably” on their present income.
Employee attitudes can be tricky to gauge.
Especially with mean and incompetent managers (and we all know they exist), subordinates are likely to muffle their true feelings. Or—if they have a public interface—to take it out on the customers (the true boss of any company). If I were an executive in retail grocery, I would be particularly concerned about this matter right now.
As for personnel review meetings, managers can forget about learning the truth there, where employees are (1) afraid of being fired or demoted, (2) angling for a raise, or (3) both.
How do employers know where they stand? Not many companies will be able to call in Gallup to do a specialized poll.
Similar results may be gained by simpler methods.
Employee survey
Small- and medium-sized companies may find that the easiest way to gauge employee sentiment is to conduct a survey. A simple one: printed out on a single sheet of paper (no computerized responses, since employees may feel rightly or wrongly that answers can be traced back to them).
Ask questions such as these below.
On a scale of one to five, please rate your current satisfaction with:
• Your job as a whole
• Your satisfaction with your current pay
• Your satisfaction with your benefits
• Your satisfaction with paid time off, including vacations, sick time, and maternity leave
• The performance of the manager you directly report to
• The performance of your company’s top management
• Your impression of your company in relation to others in similar industries
• Your likelihood of quitting or moving to another job in the next year
• Your company’s commitment to environmental sustainability
• Your company’s commitment to fair treatment of employees
• Your company’s commitment to goals of racial and sexual diversity in the workplace
• Your company’s performance as a corporate citizen in your community, state, nation, and the world
Then add a space for personal comments and recommendations.
Notice that the last four questions have to do with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, which are so prominent in current management discourse.
Have employees submit their surveys to HR, and have HR compile the results. All HR has to do is count up the numbers on the responses and average them. Have HR put the comments into a single computer file (to ensure anonymity in regard to handwriting).
Of course, you can personalize the survey to address any specific issues of your own.
This isn’t as scientific as a research firm like Gallup could produce, but at the cost of a few dozen printed pages and a few hours of HR time, it’s a lot cheaper.
You’ll get some feedback that will be clear enough—whether or not you want to see it.
