Barometer for measuring employee Attitude

By Luke Anami

Employees are the greatest asset for any organisation because their contribution matters.

Knowing their attitude and opinions, through regular surveys, can provide insights to organisational performance.

"Surveys can reveal information about employees that can never be shared with management," says Mr Martin Mati, a business researcher.

Hence, to understand employees’ attitudes and motivation, it is necessary to carry out employee satisfaction and opinion surveys.

The surveys should reveal how employees feel about their personal and professional development.

The questionnaires should tackle the following issues:

Depending on the facts the management wants to know workers’ perception on the organisation, it needs to develop the survey type which will best reveal the information.

"The perception of employees about their jobs could be different from what you think," Mati says.

Opportunity to identify

He says the data should provide organisations with an opportunity to identify and address issues affecting the workplace. They may range from levels of employee engagement to workplace ‘mutiny’.

Other reasons why organisations conduct surveys is to improve productivity.

Productivity is viewed as a scientific measure, to know whether an organisation is utilising resources to the efficiently.

Sampling the satisfaction of customers should be a component of employee surveys because disgruntled workers could be venting their anger on what they produce.

Good sales volumes are an indicator of customer satisfaction, which can be attributed to satisfied employees.

"Customer surveys can be an indicator of motivated and productive workers ," Mr Leonard Maloba, a management consultant.