03 Dec 09 Human Resources Surveys: A Glimpse into your Employee's Minds

There was one movie where a teacher gave all of her students an initial grade of A. When asked why she did that, she said that it is harder to maintain this high grade rather than starting from scratch and earning it.

The same principle can be applied in the corporate world. It is easy enough to hire new employees rather than keeping them satisfied in the workplace and making them stay on their current jobs.

Take a look at these quick facts:

- Companies find it ten times more costly and time-consuming to hire and train a new employee rather than keeping an existing employee.

- An employee who leaves a company does not usually voice out his or her exact reason for leaving. Although the most common causes are dissatisfaction with the salary, co-workers or the work environment, there are real reasons behind the supposed reasons why employees leave their jobs.

- Most companies fail to hear out the concerns of their employees when it comes to compensation and other work-related concerns.

Basically, the thrust of these facts is that it is more difficult and time consuming to hire new employees rather than keep the new ones, so why not just keep your existing personnel satisfied and not give them any reason to leave their jobs?

One of the most effective ways to know your employees are thinking is by distributing human resources surveys. Here are the advantages of human resource surveys:

1. You would have an idea if your employees are satisfied with their current compensation.

The rule is, you will never know unless you ask. You might think that a clerk or your receptionist is earning enough, but what if she thinks otherwise?

Most employees feel that they are overworked and underpaid, and isn't it better to know beforehand what exactly they are thinking before they hand you a resignation letter because they were offered a higher salary by a competitor?

2. You can get a feedback about work-related issues.

When distributing human resources surveys, be as direct and specific as possible. Ask you employees what they think of the food in the pantry.

Are their earning enough money? Do they feel as if their requests regarding employee benefits are being processed on time? How do they feel about their immediate superiors?

What do they think of the existing office rules and company regulations? How do they rate the overall operations of the company from a scale of one to ten, ten being the highest?

By asking such important questions, your employees will feel that you care enough to ask them about what they think and send a message that you are going to do something about the matters that they find dissatisfactory.

3. You can figure out potential problems.

From the feedback and results of the human resources surveys, you can point out potential problem areas about the general operations of your company.

If there are a lot of complaints and negative feedback about the slowness of the processing of employee benefits, you can take action and see to it that the process is improved. You can further work on the perks and benefits that your employees find satisfactory.

All in all, human resources surveys are the key into the minds of your employees. Your goal as a company is to provide the best products and services that you can offer, while maintaining the satisfaction of your local personnel and turning your company into one of the best places to work for.

By having a glimpse of your employee's minds, you would know what to do about their complaints and take measure to improve the things in your company that they find lacking. Thus, you will have a satisfied work force who will help your company climb its way to the top.

About the Author

Dave Poon is an accomplished writer who specializes in the latest in Human Resource. For more information regarding Human Resource Surveys please drop by at http://www.humanresourcesite.com/