Do you want your business to be mediocre, or great?

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“There’s always someone who knows something.” ― Stephen King
 
“Even though there are no ways of knowing for sure, there are ways
of knowing for pretty sure.” ― Lemony Snicket
 
“There’s more to getting to where you’re going than just knowing
there’s a road.” ― Joan Lowery Nixon
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How many times do you hear a business owner talk about their staff as the key to business success? Those same business owners will invest in understanding what their customers or clients think, but often don’t survey or know what their most important clients, i.e. staff, actually think.
There is no doubt having an engaged and focussed workforce is critical to business success. But how do you really know if your staff are actually engaged? Are your staff satisfied? Do you know if your staff are challenged ‘enough’? Or not challenged enough? Are your staff proud of your company, and would they refer a good friend to join?

These are some of the questions that can be answered by establishing a staff survey programme in your business.
Most New Zealand businesses don’t have a way to measure what their staff really think, or how they feel about their jobs, managers, customers, or if they have any great ideas for improving an aspect of your business.
Most business don’t realise that running a staff survey programme is an effective way to improve communication in your business and show your staff they you care.
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“Listening can make the difference between a mediocre organisation
and a great one.” Lee Iacocca
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In 2016 one of our clients were facing significant challenges and decisions about their business. They have over 100 staff in multiple offices within New Zealand, and as is not uncommon, they don’t have any formal HR management in-house.
The board and management wanted to understand what the dynamics were amongst the staff and to understand the pulse of the organisation.
We discussed conducting an independent staff survey using an automated tool that they could access online. We designed a survey which gathered insights into staff engagement levels, the challenges that staff saw in the business and suggestion of what could be improved. The survey took staff approximately 15 minutes, and over 75% of staff completed the survey. We could paint a picture for management that identified key issues in their business, and some urgent areas that needed to be improved that were causing significant disruption and damage to the business culture.
In 2018, we surveyed the staff again. We found some truly astounding changes from the previous two years. 95% of staff completed the survey, and reported that the celebration of success within the business had materially improved. The ability and confidence of staff to solve customer problems had dramatically improved, as well a belief that staff were happy and willing to go beyond what was expected to solve problems in the business. The staff had a materially improved view as to the focus of quality by management, and management keeping commitments that it made. As standalone results, these reflected a high performing company with a strong culture, the comparison to 2016 demonstrated a number of key trends that the management and board will recognise and incorporate into future planning and strategy.
If you want to know what the pulse of your business is doing, contact Gilligan Sheppard to help you unleash your staffs insights into your business.
These tools and approach are suited to business with 40+ staff, at levels below they are less statistically relevant and are more like 360 degree reviews, which still have value.