An employee questionnaire is a set of questions a company poses to their employees in order to get their point of view and opinions surrounding their relationship with their job, their co-workers, and their organisation. Conducting such a questionnaire can, if done correctly, lead to numerous positives for any organisation.
Keep reading to learn how your business could benefit!
1. Measuring satisfaction and engagement
An obvious benefit of a questionnaire is its ability to measure how satisfied employees are with their job and organisation. Through appropriate and strategic questions, organisations can get a scope of how satisfied and engaged employees are. Interpreting the levels of satisfaction in a proactive manner can lead to numerous positives for an organisation’s performance.
2. Quantifying what impacts levels of satisfaction and engagement
In addition to measuring employee satisfaction and engagement, it is essential that questionnaires are used to effectively understand specifically what can increase or decrease these variables. Doing so can lead to organisations being able to purposely increase these levels of satisfaction and engagement and gain strategic advantage for doing so.
3. Improved productivity
An essential benefit of measuring satisfaction is the impact it has on workplace productivity. Various studies have found that employees who are happy or satisfied are usually more productive than those who are unhappy or dissatisfied.
Understanding the clear link between satisfaction and productivity by quantifying the key drivers that affect satisfaction will therefore be greatly beneficial for an organisation’s overall performance.
4. Better customer service
Research has shown that job satisfaction and customer service are directly correlated. It has been found that if employees feel like they are treated unfairly and work in poor conditions, their attitudes towards customers will reflect this dissatisfaction and thereby lead to poor service. Not overlooking the impacts of employee wellbeing on customer satisfaction is therefore crucial and a key reason for conducting a questionnaire that measures satisfaction.
5. Higher retention rates
According to a study by Gallup, 52% of existing employees say their manager or organisation could have done something to prevent them from leaving. Conducting an employee questionnaire to get a measure of employees’ sentiment can be crucial for organisations to recognise if actions must be implemented in order to retain employees who may be on the verge of leaving the company.
6. Lower absenteeism
Regularly missing work without good reason is a crucial issue across organisations and workplaces. It is often linked to low levels of satisfaction, particularly due to employees lacking a good work/life balance or due to them feeling like they are not receiving enough feedback, recognition, and appreciation. These are topics that can be directly addressed in a questionnaire and organisations can react accordingly if responses indicate it is needed.
7. Encourage honesty
Ensuring anonymous answers for the questionnaire can lead to increased honesty from employees as they will no longer have a fear of backlash that their responses will potentially be used against them in the future. By collecting anonymous responses, employees will feel more secure and consequently be more inclined to give more truthful and candid feedback.
8. Showing employees their opinions are valued
By asking relevant questions and making clear that the responses obtained from the questionnaire will be used to make changes, employees will feel like their voice is valued and that they actively are a part of the organisation’s development and direction. This will in turn lead to employees feeling more motivated to share new ideas and opinions to their management, which will positively impact the organisation.
9. Ensure clarity and alignment between organisation and employee
Making sure employees are fully aware of their exact role within an organisation and what is expected of them, as well making sure they are fully aligned with the organisation’s goals and objectives, are all crucial factors for overall performance. A questionnaire is an effective tool for finding out if more clarification is required to ensure all employees are on the right track.
10. Locate areas in need of improvement
Through honest feedback from employees and a gathering of overall satisfaction and engagement levels, managers and organisations can understand which areas are in need of improvement and take appropriate action to rectify or better where necessary. Examples of areas that are often in need of improvement after analysing employee questionnaires are:
- company benefits
- training/development opportunities
- workload
- relationships with co-workers or managers
To learn more about improving satisfaction, communication and relationships in the workplace, check out our Communication Skills and Conflict Resolution online training courses.
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