Employee Surveys | Employee Insights

Sexism in the Workplace: Consider the 2013 Oscars

If you happened to catch the Oscars recently (or even if you didn’t you probably couldn’t avoid reading about it online) you should know something of the debate occurring over this year’s host, Seth McFarlane’s choices about joke material. The problem many saw with his hosting style was that his focus on gender differences went too far. However, some pointed out that the biggest problem with the 2013 Oscars is that many did not even notice the sexist nature of Seth McFarlane’s jokes until after someone pointed them out. Continue Reading →

Sources of Performance Information

Are you interested in re-vamping or creating a performance appraisal process for employees? The performance appraisal process is a tricky one that involves a great deal of planning and thought. Moreover, no performance appraisal system can be perfect so leaders in organizations tend to be on the look for the latest trends and best practices in the field. While I may not be able to provide a fool-proof answer to all performance appraisal problems, I can share some tips on choosing sources of performance appraisal feedback based on my studies.

To begin with, consider: who should have input when rating an employee’s performance at work? The supervisor? A subordinate? A peer? Oneself? The following are a few advantages and disadvantages to obtaining information and ratings from these sources that should help managers decide which sources would be most appropriate in their organization. Continue Reading →

Cultivating Employees as Brand Ambassadors

Note: for more on this topic, tune into our upcoming webcast with LinkedIn Talent Solutions on January 29.

Author: TNS Consulting and Marketing Team

We’ve already established the reasons why it pays to engage employee connections and company followers on LinkedIn. You can do some of that yourself, but in reality you’ll get from 0 to 60 much faster if you partner with your employees. Your brand, whether corporate or employer, is no longer about the message you control, but rather the authentic experience you deliver.

A recent analysis by TNS offers the top drivers of employer brand ambassadors to deliver the brand promise, or what people expect from every interaction with your company: Continue Reading →

Survey Struggles

http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=1395770

When assessing employee satisfaction it is important to be very cognizant of how to do so successfully. That is, it is easy to unintentionally measure something that is unrelated to workplace satisfaction. For example, merely asking employees if they liked a recent training program is not nearly as useful a question as asking how many times they used something they learned in the training program in the last month.

The first step in understanding employees’ perceptions is to know what questions to ask in order to elicit the most accurate responses possible. Many leaders in organizations attempt to create a quick survey in house to give to employees, but often times obtaining inaccurate information based on a poorly constructed survey can be waste a company time and money. Continue Reading →

Goals at Work

Do you ever take time to think about what kinds of goals you have at work? Does your employer encourage you to set goals for performance (e.g., SMART goals used to set objectives)? If not, goal setting within the workplace is something important to consider as it could help you to define what your priorities and values are at work. When you truly stop to consider it, your goals may not be what you had expected. Perhaps rather than hoping for a 5 out of 5 on your next performance appraisal, you actually hope to outperform others and advance through the company. Or, perhaps you hope to develop your individuals skills through rigorous learning experiences.

There are many types of goals at work that an employee can hope to attain. Learning goals, performance/outcome goals, normative goals (in which you hope to outperform your peers), mastery goals, approach success and avoid failure goals, and many more. Understanding the specific kind of goals employees hold regarding their work can help organizations understand how to better help their employees either attain these aspirations or form more productive goals.

Often times disengaged employees will form avoid failure goals in which they are just hoping to “get by.” Obviously employers would prefer employees to aspire to something more toward learning or promotion. Moreover, feeling encouraged to set one’s own goals at work allows employees to feel more in control over their jobs rather than at the mercy of others. Our most recent panel data shows that 65% of employees surveyed felt that they had some control over their work. What about the rest?

Do you establish some goals for yourself or do you primarily operate based on organizational objectives?

References:

Grant, H., & Dweck, C. S. (2003). Clarifying achievement goals and their impact. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 541-553.

TNS at HRMAC Summit NOW!

TNS Employee Insights is at HRMAC Summit today in Rosemont, Illinois. If you are already coming to the summit, please stop by booth 120. Christy Kessler and Mary O’Brien will be available to speak with you. If you’re not going to the HRMAC Summit, you can always call us at 847-726-4040.

Anonymous or Not?

How many times have you taken a survey for an organization you have or are working for? Was the survey conducted with an online database or was it standard pen and paper? What were your thoughts about your individual responses? Did you feel that your responses would be tied to you specifically? Continue Reading →

Online Employee Surveys

Organizations have many different options in how employee surveys are conducted. The medium that is used to collect data has become more vast. In the past, paper and pencil was the only option. Compiling data from paper and pencil can be more challenging considering the other available options. Online survey collection has become increasingly more common for this very reason. Continue Reading →

Yes! We Still Print Paper Surveys!

Many of you know the fundamental reasons why employee engagement surveys are so useful and essential to the success of any organization, large or small. On our website, TNS Employee Insights, you can read how in more detail.

In today’s ultra-modern hyper-tech world, when most people think of a survey, they think of them being conducted through the computer or by smart phone. The truth is that in many locations domestic and abroad, paper surveys are still the way to go for many companies and not because they are behind the times. Continue Reading →

How does job satisfaction impact intention to leave?

Job satisfaction is the defined as the feeling that an individual has toward his or her work. We have all experienced both sides of the spectrum at some point in our lives. How did feeling dissatisfied impact your work? What were your feelings toward your job? Did you feel inclined to look for another job? Continue Reading →

Cognitive Interviews in the Workplace

Cognitive interviews are a method for gathering expansive information during survey distribution. While information collected through survey research is useful, cognitive interviews take the process to the next level. Cognitive interviews allow the researcher to understand how their survey may influence how respondents are answering survey items. Continue Reading →

Fly on the Wall at the Employee Engagement Summit 2012

Like a fly on the wall, I got to peek into the JWT building in NYC to listen in while Mike Schroeder, the CEO of TNS Employee Insights, spoke about employee engagement for the last session of the day at our Employee Engagement Summit 2012.

Mike started out talking about some great companies and how well they listen and treat their employees by finding creative ways to make work fun. Mike cited more stats, perks and benefits of these companies that demonstrate good strategies, leadership, and objectives for employees. It all seems to tie in together; great employees, great benefits, great leadership equals great profits.

Mike stressed that if you have an engaged workforce, you have higher performers, and higher performers will increase your employee survey scores significantly. Not to wonder, but by knowing this, if your organization’s engagement scores are low, the disengaged employees are “holding your organization back.” Continue Reading →

Engagement Summit Takes a Bite of Big Apple

Well, we’re off to a great start at our Employee Engagement Summit 2012 in NYC. Here are just a few pictures we want to share with you and there will be more to come. We’ll be taping it too, so if you are interested in greater detail, let me know!

Raters and 360° Feedback

The use of 360° feedback has continued to increase as organizations understand the value of using this assessment style. 360° feedback allows employees, managers, and the organization to gain valuable insight into one’s performance from a more varied group of raters. Performance evaluations tend to cause employees stress and anxiety. Although there are many reasons for this worry, most commonly, employees feel that his or her manager is out to get them. When 360° feedback is implemented, the presence of bias is decreased and no longer is the assessment resting on the manager’s opinion.

Is 360° feedback the perfect solution for performance appraisals? Like an appraisal system, there are flaws that should be understood by organizations and the organization should work hard to prevent inaccurate performance appraisals. We have all been in groups or work settings in which there seems to be one “odd man out” or one person that just does not seem to mesh will with the rest of the group. It is not that there is anything wrong with this employee, but there are differences in personalities. Unfortunately, this employee may be a target for poor performance evaluations.

Continue Reading →

Avoiding the Survey Slump

Here’s a must read for all companies who have surveyed their employees in the past, gather the results, but don’t follow through with action planning, or a grand attempt is made in the beginning, but fizzles out as time wears on.

An excerpt from the article describes the “Survey Slump”:

“In many survey processes, a phenomena called the “survey slump” seems to set in somewhere between the delivery of survey results and the launch of the next survey. Organizations that conduct employee surveys on a regular basis know this time well. Excitement builds around the delivery of the results as managers look to see if their scores have improved (or declined). Everyone wants to know if the actions taken had any effect.”

Here is the article, “Avoiding the Survey Slump” in its entirety. Let me know what you think about it.

Graphic Rating Scale

Believe it or not, you probably already know what a graphic rating scale is. A graphic rating scale is a commonly used scale system for performance appraisals. The scale typically features a Likert scale from 1-3, 1-5, and so on. An example of a 1-3 rating could include responses such as: 1: Poor, 2: Average, and 3: Excellent. The scale that is used for a specific performance appraisal can vary by the dimensions each organization chooses to use. For instance, there may be dimensions such as accountability, customer service, and financial records. The organization has control over how the items measure employee performance. Continue Reading →

Retaining Employees – From an Employee’s Perspective

The latest buzz in the work world is how to keep your best employees working for you, i.e., employee retention. As most of us know, it costs companies beaucoup money to replace good talent. As the “Great Recession” comes to an end, evidenced by more and more jobs opening up, employers are faced with one of their worst nightmares.

Twenty or thirty years ago, loyalty and tenure went a long way in a company and anyone who worked steadily for 10 years or more, was rewarded for their length of service by an increase in pay, promotions, more vacation time, or maybe a gold watch. Then something changed. Continue Reading →

Customer Focus: Direct Link to High Performers

When you hear about high-performing companies, which ones come to mind? Motorola? Hewitt? Microsoft? Johnson & Johnson? Your own company?

Our latest publication entitled, “Employee Engagement – To What End?” discusses how high performing companies retain employees In a recent survey analysis of more than 145 companies and 1.5 million employees by TNS Employee Insights, (our company), we found that high performing companies’ main focus is on customers. Leaders of companies showing sustained financial growth have better relationships with their employees, and employees are more customer focused in return.

As we are coming out of this recession, employers are getting nervous because they could be at risk of losing key talent. We know how costly turnover can be, and it would serve employers best to find ways to retain talent and thereby working on ways to keep employees engaged. Continue Reading →

Is Quality Being Compromised?

I have noticed a reoccurring theme in my graduate studies that concerns me and leaves me feeling frustrated. In my program, we study the science behind human resource practices. For instance, an organization should not give out just any survey to employees. The organization would be wise to ensure the survey will truly meet the purpose of administering the survey. Time and time again my professors have said that most organizations will not spend the time or money to take the steps truly necessary. Continue Reading →

TRAINING DAY

Employee training is only effective if its desired results and actions are allowed by management to be practiced by the employees.

This is a powerful statement I happen to believe in. All too often at various training sessions I attended in the past, I heard less than mediocre enthusiasm, seen rolling eyes, and heard negative responses. I’m not surprised when I hear someone comment:

I think this is a complete waste of time and money.
Who’s going to remember all this?
I doubt we will be allowed to practice what we learn.
I’ve learned a lot on a personal level but not on a professional level.
This is not going to help our situation at this company

The list of negatives goes on. However, I was very delighted to hear just the opposite at our last company-wide training session which was scheduled over 3 days, for 3 hours each day. The training was very interesting and engaging. There were plenty of questions posed to us individually. In essence, we were asked to voice our opinions and experiences without criticism.

My personal experience with training leads me to believe that the techniques used by the instructor inspire one to learn how to think more than to learn what to do. The hopeful outcome that any instructor wishes to ignite is for trainees to have an Alleluia epiphany. As teachers will tell you, this is a wonderful euphoric moment for them knowing they have “gotten through” to their students.

Training in the workplace is no different. My observation of most of the people, especially in the work groups I participated in, was that they seemed very honest, open and interested in change in order to improve the way we do things now. We did not dwell on faulty current processes as much as we were eager to learn from the instructor how to improve. In my mind, this speaks volumes.

While in college, studying for my degree in Applied Behavioral Science, we took various personality tests which are still popular to this day; Keirsey-Bates and Myers-Briggs; MBTI^®, to name a few. In this training session, we took the “DiSC” personality test. The practicum here is to discover more about ourselves and how we relate to others. As a company that studies human behavior and advises best practices in the workplace, I believe this to be one of best foundations of communication. After this particular exercise learning about DiSC, I found a comparison of personality tests online. My MBTI^® score is ENFJ; sensing, intuitive and feelings, a natural pedagogue, and the DiSC score is “i” which equates to the MBTI ENFJ.

Once we were knowledgeable about our own and others’ scores, we found it much better to relate later on when we were in problem solving teams. As far as taking what we learned from the classroom to the real world, we worked on a real company problem which we had methodically concluded was top priority. All notes and flip charts were saved and the entire session was videotaped and individual teams were recorded at their tables.

I believe our training was a huge success. I felt good about learning something new. I felt enlightened to be on the cusp of change. I had several epiphanies myself; one of which was learning how to brainstorm in a newer and better way than the old Quality Circles. I learned a lot about myself and my colleagues as well.

Finally, training is only as good as the trainer. Mr. Dille, was our instructor and being an “I” (from DiSC) himself, he is highly knowledgeable on the subjects he presents; lively and enthusiastic, funny, attentive, timely, and made us want to learn more. Mr. Dille returns in October to continue more training sessions with us, and not only am I looking forward to it, but I strongly feel it’s worth every dime!

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