The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves...

[jdmorton]

Once again, MegaCorp conducted an employee satisfaction survey. And once again, executive management took a hit as being unresponsive and uncaring. This time, they are demanding asking for small group employee meetings face-to-face with local management to finally weed out the malcontents gain employee input and beat the rest into submission prioritize action plans. This is at least the third company-wide employee unsatisfaction survey that's been conducted since I've been here in the last decade and a half. And the results are always the same :.

Here's my input: STOP TAKING SURVEYS!!! Sheesh, you think they would get the message by now!

 

[jdmorton]

I see I hit the "post" button to soon :. The last part of the message should not have been in strikethrough font.

Oh, well

 

[REWahoo]

You can hit that little "modify" button and unstrike it...

 

[poboy]

I always lied on those surveys. Followed the "tell me what I want to hear" approach.

 

[Caroline]

I remember being "cordially invited" to one of these little meetings. I tried to get away without saying anything at all.

The boss finally went around the table one-by-one for "issues." I picked the most inconsequential thing I could think of. Others were not so careful and actually told the boss they were "unhappy" or even "miserable" with working conditions.

I'm still here.

They're all gone.

In the long run, I'm not sure who was smarter.

 

[jdmorton]

ReWahoo!- Thanks

I guess I should post more, to figure out all of the message board posting features

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

Once again, MegaCorp conducted an employee satisfaction survey...
Here's my input: STOP TAKING SURVEYS!!! Sheesh, you think they would get the message by now!

maybe the message isn't for them. all those surveys taught me a very important lesson. i learned about early retirement.

 

[yakers]

I'm still here.

They're all gone.

In the long run, I'm not sure who was smarter.

A truly insightful person. Things can go either way, staying or going.

 

[brewer12345]

Who said you had to respond to surveys like that? After all, if they are really anonymous, how would they know who didn't participate?

 

[Sandy]

We just did our annual morale survey, results not out yet. But, we have had an increase in turnover in the last 2 years under the new director, but they keep rationalizing the numbers.

This week, as part of an office-wide attempt get input and make sure everyone feels valued, I got a chance to talk with Dir and Asst Dir about my future goals, current place in the organization, etc. I've never been ne to mince words, and having shared my views in the past with various supervisors to no effect, figured I didn't have much to lose. I know they won't fire me. I said it like I saw it. The next day, the Assit Dir came by and said they heard what I said and would take steps to improve things. A more positive response than I expected, but we will see what actually happens.

 

[frayne]

I worked for a major oil company and during about the last ten years they would come out with these surveys, usually just right after a round of re-engineering, benchmarking, reorganizations, labor strike, etc. And as expected the survey results would reflect the low morale and dicontent of the employees. For some reason the upper management never could understand why such well paid employees could be so unhappy.

Duh.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Who said you had to respond to surveys like that? After all, if they are really anonymous, how would they know who didn't participate?

We had meetings where we were handed the surveys and they were to be filled out and collected before the meeting proceeded.

As I read the survey, the questions and possible answers (all approved by senior management) really led to a specific series of possible outcomes, few of which matched how people really felt.

Instead of paying some survey company a brazillion dollars to 'craft' and 'process' the survey, they should have let everyone write down in their own words what they did and didnt like, and then drop the notes in a box. Divide them up among senior management and let them read them on their honeymoons.

That'd give a somewhat better message on what was really on peoples minds.

 

[SteveR]

We don't have to endure surveys here. People just vote with their feet. Our turnover rate is about 30%. Mgt. measures it and wants us to make it get better yet they do nothing to fix the issues that create it. Duh!

The GM came to me the other day and said Corp. was asking him to improve the turnover at the site. I asked him what he was planning on doing about it..he said.. " tell people to not quit".

That is about all we can do since the reasons are more related to better jobs in the area or higher pay. The company is small so there are limited positions and corp. has a lock on wages and is inflexible on increasing them to retain highly techical people. Then they have the gaul to get pissy about our turnover rate. BTW, the unemployement rate in the area is now down to 1.7%. If you can't attract folks with money and benefits your sparkling personality won't go far.

 

[whitestick]

As I read the survey, the questions and possible answers (all approved by senior management) really led to a specific series of possible outcomes

Ding!Ding!Ding!
That's the real purpose - Senior Managment wants to report to Board and Stockholders a preordained result, thus you lead the participants to give that result. Discard any that fall outside of that official result, and you can state "representing our employees feedback, here are the rankings of the top 5 responses showing their morale"

 

[Sarah in SC]

The "going down the tubes" web retailer where I worked spent a brazillion dollars hiring a consulting company to bring in "the two Bobs" (see office space) for interviews with key employees to see what we thought of the management team. They asked leading questions, trying to get the responses that the b*tch on roller skates of a VP wanted to hear, that she was a great leader that everyone loved.

I acted terrified/uneasy everytime they brought up her name, and said that she wouldn't talk to me, even to say hello in the hall, so I couldn't say whether she was a good manager or not. After more of the same interviews with others, they sent their findings in to the VC folks who owned the company, who then promoted said b*tch to president. Served them right to lose all their money when the place went belly-up some months later! But I'm not bitter or anything...

Sarah

 

[Khan]

Who said you had to respond to surveys like that? After all, if they are really anonymous, how would they know who didn't participate?

I read somewhere (where people were talking about 'stupid management tricks') that 'anonymous' surveys were handed to employees and it was noticed that they all had different form numbers in very small print.

 

[bssc]

I remember at my university that, since the student survey actually counted towards tenure, that the professor had to seal the envelope with the surveys in it in front of the class and hand it to a student to walk over to the deans office with them.

 

[Meadbh]

Our staff satisfaction surveys can be one online or by voicemail in several languages. Passwords are provided to employees and they are analyzed independently in the aggregate. They can't be traced back to individuals.

Qualitative feedback can be very useful to an organization provided it is done at arm's length and staff can trust the process....and that management is receptive to listening to what they hear!

 

[SteveR]

I read somewhere (where people were talking about 'stupid management tricks') that 'anonymous' surveys were handed to employees and it was noticed that they all had different form numbers in very small print.

At my stellar company they sent them out via email and expected people to return them....via email. Duh!

 

[brewer12345]

Our staff satisfaction surveys can be one online or by voicemail in several languages. Passwords are provided to employees and they are analyzed independently in the aggregate. They can't be traced back to individuals.

Pull the other one: its got bells on.

 

[bssc]

When I worked at the American <insert profession> Association, the president hired one of his buddies, an organizational psychologist, to do an employee satisfaction survey. The only thing we heard was that management didn't do too well and were looking at ways to address it. The President and 6 out of 7 of his VPs resigned within a year.

 

[sgeeeee]

I was working for megacorp several years ago when the main cretin CEO launched a new corporate initiative called Individual Dignity Entitlement. The program involved all employees sitting down with their supervisor and answering & discussing several questions. The first questions was something like, "Do you have a meaningful and fullfiling job?" Each of us had to go to special indoctrination training to learn about this bullsh#t bold new initiative.

It turns out that I had already decided to leave this cesspool of a company and was negotiating terms of my escape new employment when the training started. I sat quietly listening to several hours of drivel information packed presentations and couldn't help but notice that no one seemed enthused. The instructor noticed too. Finally she pleaded with the class, "Someone please tell me why no one seems excited about this opportunity to discuss important job issues with your supervisors."

One of the other guys in the class finally spoke up and said something like, "I've watched this company systematically promote the biggest a##holes they could find through the ranks of management. Now you want us to believe that a training class and discussion is going to change the fact that they are all raging a##holes?"

I spewed milk through my nose all over the desk in front of me and choked from laughing so hard. The class was over.

 

[johnlw]

We recently went through this B.S. charade where I work. As expected, the surveys revealed that employees think management basically sucks. This prompted the follow on B.S. charade that consisted of each team discussing what could be done to improve things with their manager, then ranking the top 3 suggestions for improvement. Each manager was then supposed to bring that information to upper management so "action plans" could be put in place to improve things.

The kicker is that all of this was being done against a background of massive funding cuts against all our projects and rumors of imminent layoffs.

John

 

[2B]

I always liked these when I was in management. I had a combination of hourly and salariedwho was in the last stages of the discipline process for not doing anything at work applicable to what he was supposed to do. I assume it was his comment that said his supervisor (me) was "insensitive, deadline driven and consistently harsh." Unfortunately, I had him terminated before the survey results came back but anyone with that kind of honesty deserved to be saved.

The semi-mega corp I worked for had the survey coded by department without telling anyone. When the results came out by department, people were outraged. It was interesting that I was the only dept. head who had an overwhelmingly positive "could be trusted and believed" section. Other than that, I was just another jerk. Ultimately, a manager had to implement policy even if it was stupid.

When layoffs came, I was the first senior manager cut. I was also closest to full pension vesting so I can't claim being rated high on trust was a cause for termination.

 

[Jeb-NY]

In my pre-RE life, the MegCorp I worked for did these surveys annually. The last few years I worked for a manager that was always top rated on the survey (helped me survive). He was the one used as an example to how it should be done. Recently heard he got demoted. Don't know the details, may have been his choice to get out of the rat race, but looks to me that the other managers found a way to raise their scores.

Jeb