Staff Survey

As a manager you want a way of gauging employee satisfaction and motivation so you can achieve :

• Better staff retention

• Better team performance

Problem is Most Surveys…

• Are unwieldy, time-consuming and complex “monsters”.

• Require complicated setup and access.

• Take ages to implement.

• Get less than 60% of staff completing the survey.

• Make you wait weeks or months for the results.

• Produce some long winded report which takes ages to interpret and leaves you or HR feeling overwhelmed.

• Follow up so late they become simply ineffective.

• Leave staff cynical. They see it as another, management led initiative, which disappears into a black hole, and which doesn’t seem to change anything. It’s perceived as a “tick-box” exercise.

• Are expensive to run. You find yourself paying not only for the survey, but the “complex report” from the consultancy, and maybe even further high fees for them to help you implement the follow up.

• Are seen as management led. Staff don’t really get involved in the plans for improvement.

Introducing “An Even Better Place to Work”
A do-it-yourself on-line staff survey and follow up tool:

1. You can be set up and ready to go within 48 hours
2. Simple instructions – 5 minute survey for your team – completely anonymous.
3. A template for an immediate follow up activity.
4. The option of  additional resources to help you follow up in any areas the survey highlights as areas for improvement.
5. No hidden fees. No extra consultancy costs. Once we have you set up in the system it’s completely Do It Yourself.

Here’s what some of our clients are saying about this system:

“A powerful, innovative way to engage staff – we got some very important issues onto the table“. Trisha Western – Sony

“The programme had real impact on the bottom line – we were able to resolve issues with key customers which, left unresolved would have cost us money“. Karen Meaden – Siemens

“It’s an extraordinarily effective and outrageously priced system that delivers big“. Mike Wilsher – The Executive Foundation

“What I love about An Even Better Place to Work is that it’s both top down AND bottom up. It works for the business and for the individual too“. Sarah Cooper – BAE Systems

PLUS

We will give you:

• Access to the survey itself, on the online system for 5 days, so you can see how quick and easy it is to complete the survey and see your personal chart. (You’ll get your user name and password to you within 48 hours – often far less than that!)

• You’ll also see how easy it would be to get 100% response rate from your full team on that system – AND see the results immediately.

Plus 2 bonuses, total value $36:

• Brilliant handbook for the new manager – easy to read strategies and tips for any manager who wants to have a more motivated, engaged and productive team. (Value $19)

• Six things you need to know about motivating your staff. (Audio & workbook: Value $17) – This brilliant 30 minute audio PLUS accompanying workbook helps you understand the 6 key things you need to know about someone if you’re going to effectively motivate them. Comes with a 4 page pdf document giving you the main points and a worksheet to help you consider how to more effectively motivate your team.

Both these items can help support all your efforts to improve employee motivation, performance and productivity.

PLUS

I promise you – this simple framework will bring you one step closer to having a more motivated, engaged and happy team – and happy, motivated people are more productive people.

Warmest regards,

Shona Garner

PS: Remember!
People problems cost you money, time and hassle – as well as being incredibly frustrating. With An Even Better place to Work survey  you could have your staff talking constructively and openly, and having fun at the same time, within 6 weeks!

What makes a bad boss – bad?

What Makes a Bad Boss – Bad?

How can a boss’s behaviour lower morale and affect performance?

I found the following article in my research and reading, which I thought was really interesting – showing as it does some of the feedback from real people, about real incidents and behaviours which makes them unhappy about their manager, and you can bet affects overall morale and performance in that team..

I’ve been working recently on pulling together some ideas to share with managers about ways in which managers and organisations can kill morale, and some of the things listed here certainly fit the bill!

Read more

Should Management Skill Training Be Ditched in Today's Climate?

Management Skill Training Today

It seems there’s been some controversy over government funding to support management and leadership skills training recently which I find interesting.

As MD of a business and someone absolutely excited and committed to building businesses where being profitable, highly successful and great places to work co-exist, I find the whole debate fascinating! One post I read recently talked of the outcry in some media that job centres were spending good money on training staff, rather than on channeling that money into finding work for the unemployed which is, of course, their prime objective.

My view?

Well, as with most media stories, there is an element of hype in order to maximise their own profits; but even when you strip away the hype, there is still a risk, (and, I believe, a dangerous one at that) that we become polarised towards abandoning all but the compulsory development of our people (health and safety, practical skills and so on) and drop the so called “soft-skills” training.

Run a quick search on “you tube” for “bad bosses” or “bully bosses” and you’ll be overwhelmed with the sheer volume of video postings, and sometimes shocked at the level of frustration and intense dislike poor people managers can evoke! And whilst ever these employees feel the way they do, their energy, their focus and their performance at work will almost certainly reduce your chances as a business or a manager of hitting or exceeding your targets.

If such frustration and negative energy was going on in my business I’d be concerned.

Ask most managers today what they’re struggling most with – and they’ll tell you it’s trying to motivate people, managing organizational change in the midst of making some redundant, cutting back hours or bonuses, and piling on pressure to hit increasingly overwhelming targets. I bet those managers at the job centre are struggling to keep themselves motivated, never mind their staff, in the face of overwhelming pressures.

Outstanding managers know how to minimise problems, keep people “on-side” and still maintain higher than average levels of staff engagement and commitment – and throwing out all opportunities for them to hone such critical influencing skills only serves to add to their frustration as well as their staff’s.

Management Skill Training: What To Do When Money is Tight?

This isn’t about spending recklessly – or what you don’t have. what it IS about, is, in my view two things:

1. Get better at assessing the return on your management skills training investment.

   Let’s face it, how “woolly” are we sometimes in terms of assessing the value of most training interventions? Filling in a “happy sheet” shouldn’t cut it at any time – but in this economic climate it’s crazy not to assess your return on investment.
   Just because you may not be sure how to, doesn’t mean it’s not possible, or it shouldn’t be done. Get sharper at this.
   Ask your managers what they find the most challenging; initiate training to meet their needs, then assess!
   Get staff more used to agreeing specific action plans from training they’ve attended and more used to being able to demonstrate how they’ve applied the learning and with what results.In my experience, this is sadly lacking in too many organisations.

Management Skill Training of ANY description is a complete waste of money and time if behaviours or attitudes don’t change, and if you don’t measure its effectiveness.
I wonder if the job centres built any real accountability into the training programme their managers attended?

2. Look for funding support.

   There’s a number of ways to access training support from a variety of sources, if you look around. Ask your local Business Link or Chamber; find out more about Train to Gain. Get creative about how you use resources – both external and internal.
   Instead of coming from the mindset which says “we have no money for training managers”, which is a “dead end” statement, ask yourself:
   How can we continue to support and develop our manager’s people skills, despite the recession and a lack of budget?

As MD of my own company, I know I must stay profitable or I go under – but I also know I can’t run my business on my own – and without the support, engagement, creativity and loyalty of my staff I’ll face problems which will will only add to the risk of business failure.