property-sight

by siwild

3rd in Series: Work from Home taking Online Surveys and other Job Ideas

Working from home is great for many people. Mothers of young children gain the advantage of skipping daycare costs and losing those first few precious years together. The elderly like to work from home when they can because their budgets are so tight, their bodies are worn out and some jobs are relatively easy and pleasurable for the elderly. Those who are new to the workforce, such as those under 18, students and those freshly out of college and having a hard time finding work in the current job market.

If you have the skills for certain types of work, you can make a lot of money from home. Some great job ideas you can do from home are:

Management Analyst – if you are an expert in a certain area, like marketing, design, accounting or field, you can make very good money teaching or advising management staff about the industry they are working in. It’s a great way to spread your knowledge and insider secrets to businesses struggling to get the upper hand. Management analysts are consultants who sub-contract or work on a per project basis. If you are lucky, you can work from home, but most consultants must travel to their clients businesses.  Education required for this type of work is, at the very least, a bachelor’s degree. Some companies will substitute a bachelor’s degree for years of service in the industry and a record of success.

Technical Writer – can you decipher legal jargon, complex text books, scientific papers, difficult to understand instruction manuals, etc. better than anyone you know? If you have a degree in English, journalism or some other writing based field then you can be a technical writer and make an average salary of , 610 per year. Technical writers are people who translate difficult text into easier to understand common language or layman’s terms. Much of the work is writing manuals, how to guides or brochures. The work is easily done from home and many companies will hire at home professionals on a permanent basis to do their technical writing.

Customer Services Representative – at home professionals who take customer service calls from home are finding their job market expanding rapidly. Some companies require bachelor’s degrees in communications fields or business administration, but not all companies. Customer service representatives who work from home gross an average income of , 410 per year plus benefits.

Those without college degrees have more limited opportunities, but there are still plenty of jobs available. Just about anyone is qualified to take <a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link']);” href=”http://www.getpaidtotry.com/”>paid online surveys </a>. While there are a lot of shysters out there, clearing houses like this one: http://www.getpaidtotry.com/ has legitimate paid surveys. If you can find the best paid surveys, you can make about and do as many surveys as you want per day.

The next in the series about how to make money from home is coming soon. Don’t miss out on more great ideas and tips!

go to: www.happy-staff-happy-company.co.uk
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Tags: From, Home, Ideas, online, Series, Surveys, Taking, Work
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by Earthwatcher

The Importance of Structural Surveys for Homebuyers

The Importance of Structural Surveys for Homebuyers

There was a time when almost all homebuyers commissioned a structural survey on the property that they were intending to purchase. This article takes a look at why more and more homebuyers are prepared to purchase a home without a full structural survey.

What is a Structural Survey?

Almost every property ever built suffers to some degree from movement and in some cases the movement is so severe as to undermine the value and integrity of the property. Older period houses were built on very little foundations, mostly a dept of about 200cm and made up of coke to help with the rising damp and a wider spread of bricks below ground level which acted as the foundations. In a way this was reasonable practice as it was a wildly held belief at this time that brick built homes would only last about 30 years.

As we have since found out however, there are millions of these homes still around today and almost all of them have to some degree suffered some form of subsidence. The most crucial aspect of any form of subsidence is to discover if this is an on-going situation or if it is something that has occurred many years ago and has now stopped.

Without a full structural survey on the property that you intend to purchase you will have no idea of the structural integrity of the property and you could be making one of the largest financial mistakes of your life.

Given the cost of the average home today and the fact that you are likely to be paying for it for a period of 25 years and will in the end pay back during the life of the mortgage around three times the amount borrowed, it is unthinkable that you would make such a financial commitment that will cover most of your working life without bothering to commission a full structural survey. It’s quite clear that as the age of our period housing stock grows so will the risks increase with regard to structural problems so why would you take such a risk?

Worst Types of Structural Problems

Probably the worst types of structural problems are subsidence which insurance companies nor appear to be excluding from their house insurance. The simply won’t take the risk because they odds are not in their favor.

Subsidence is a failure of the house foundations to support the load and can happen to any part of the house. One such location on Victorian houses is the front bay window. These bays were build on even less foundation than the main building and have in the past been prone to dropping more than any other part of the house. In cases where the drop is excessive the only real remedy is to remove and rebuild at a cost of about £25,000. Clearly, it would have been a whole lot cheaper to have a full structural survey and then you would have been aware of the problem before you purchased the property and included it your negotions.

Conclusions

You would have to be mad to buy any kind of period property, flat or house, without having a full structural survey. You can find a local surveyor and compare costs for any kind of structural survey at Surveyors Supermarket, the UK’s fastest growing price comparison site for homeowners.

www.propertyhealthcheck.ie Guide to “what building surveyors look for when surveying your house”

Tags: Homebuyers, Importance, Structural, Surveys
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by @VRider

How To Use Customer Feedback Surveys At Trade Shows

What You Should Know about Customer Feedback Surveys

• Conducting Customer Feedback Surveys is a great way to obtain valuable feedback

• Be sure to tailor the questions to the appropriate timeframe: pre-show, show, and post-show

• Conducting surveys and compiling the information is only half the battle

While the trade show is in full swing, you will have some idea about how people are receiving your booth and your company. You will have a rough estimate of traffic through your booth and the quality of your leads. By observing and listen to people, you can gauge their reactions with some degree of accuracy. However, all these methods provide you with only so much information and are limited in scope. A great way to learn more is by conducting Customer Feedback Surveys. These should be done before, during, and after the show.

Make It Worthwhile

Make surveys part of your pre-show press packets. Include a one page survey asking potential and former customers about their expectations for the upcoming show. Make it worth their time. Inform them that by filling out and sending in a brief survey they will be entered into a raffle or drawing. Let them know they will be eligible to win valuable prizes during the show. During the show have a stack of surveys available and ask people if they would like to fill one out and be entered to win a prize. Include them again in the information packets you send to customers after the show.

Here are some examples of potential survey questions:

• How did you hear about our company?

• How did you hear about our presence at the trade show?

• Have you used our products/services before?

• What was that experience like?

• What is your goal/purpose in attending the show?

• What trade publications do you read/subscribe too?

• What trade guilds or societies are you a member of?

• May we send you a mailer or add you to our email list?

• What trade shows have you attended in the past?

Be sure to tailor the questions to the appropriate timeframe: pre-show, show, and post-show. The pre-show questions should focus on customer expectations and the post-show ones should focus on customer satisfaction. Ask customers what you could do in the future to improve the experience. In the end, surveys are another way to listen to your customers. Donald Trump, a man who knows a thing or two about business has been quoted as saying, “Watch, listen, and learn. You can’t know it all yourself…anyone who thinks so is destined for mediocrity.”

Act in Good Faith to the Survey Results

Finally, conducting surveys and compiling the information is only half the battle. You have to study the results and share the information with the appropriate people or departments. How they handle that information may not be your responsibility, but ideally, an action plan or response should result from the survey information. Customers who take the time to complete a survey are acting in good faith that your company will read their comments and act appropriately. In some cases, they expect someone to contact them with a solution. Failing to respond creates not only an unhappy customer but also a customer who will share their unhappiness with anyone who will listen. 

Tags: Customer, Feedback, shows, Surveys, Trade
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by nimboo

Optimizing Payback from Employee Satisfaction Surveys & Employee Engagement Surveys

Do you need or want to increase the performance of your employees and your organization’s performance?Conducting employee satisfaction surveys / employee engagement surveys is a fast and highly cost-effective way to achieve breakthrough increases in the performance of your company and your business. 

The best approach for achieving great participation in employee satisfaction surveys / employee engagement surveys is to keep all responses to your employee surveys anonymous. Employees are much more likely to participate in employee surveys and to provide honest answers to questions including ratings and comments/suggestions when they are confident that their answers will be anonymous. 

There also are several other things you can do to increase participation in an employee satisfaction survey. Having a survey company conduct the survey will make employees more confident that their responses to the survey will be kept anonymous. Telling employees that you will share the key results with them and then doing so in a timely manner will also increase participation, especially if it is followed up by taking action to make changes based on your employee survey findings. 

Getting the most value from an employee satisfaction survey / employee engagement survey requires asking the right questions the right way. Don’t be afraid to include many questions. A minimum of 45 questions and a maximum of approximately 75 questions usually works well. You should want to gather as much useful, actionable information and insight from your employees as possible. 

Well designed and executed employee surveys will enable your organization to strengthen your employer of choice reputation, significantly increase employee satisfaction and engagement, and generate breakthrough improvements in both employee and organizational performance. Of course, achieving results requires analyzing employee survey findings effectively and objectively, and then creating and executing an action plan focused on achieving results. 

It is best to include a comments field after every question that uses a rating scale. Ratings assess how well employees agree with each question or how satisfied they are and that is really important. Comments tell you why the ratings are high or low and what you can do to significantly improve employee and organizational performance, customer satisfaction and loyalty, and business competitiveness. 

Employee surveys should include demographic questions, enabling you to assess responses by demographic criteria such as location (for companies with multiple locations), department, years of service with your organization, and other demographics where the information is likely to provide actionable information (e.g. gender, race, age range, etc.), as well as results for your organization overall. 

Topics that are usually included in employee opinion surveys: 

- Company Culture/Climate

- Employee Satisfaction and Engagement

- Workplace Environment

- Safety (for companies where safety is an issue)

- Authority/Empowerment

- Customer Service and Quality

- Ingenuity

- Business Process Effectiveness

- Reward and Recognition

- Compensation and Benefits

- Your Manager/Supervisor

- Training and Development Opportunity/Effectiveness

- Teamwork and Collaboration

- Communications

- Senior Management Effectiveness

- Company Direction/Mission/Vision/Values

The cost of conducting employee surveys is very low and the payback can be huge. By doing assessments annually you will be able to track trends and determine how well changes are being made. You will also be able to identify new opportunities and problems that have surfaced since your last assessment. 

Tags: Employee, Engagement, From, Optimizing, Payback, Satisfaction, Surveys
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by tonbabydc

Boosting Your Company’s Competitiveness with Employee Surveys and HR Surveys

Both in good economic times and when times are highly challenging, companies need to compete aggressively to grow and thrive. Business leaders sometimes rely too heavily on their own knowledge to make important decisions, without getting valuable input from employees throughout their organization. 

Your company’s managers and other employees have extensive information and insight about your company’s processes, products and services, customers and other key drivers of business performance, competitiveness and profit. Employees know the barriers to their own performance and what it will take to make your company significantly more competitive and profitable. 

The fastest and most effective way to tap the knowledge and insight of your employees is to conduct employee surveys and other types of HR surveys. A full service survey company can design and conduct your employee survey at a fraction of the cost of the payback they will provide. They provide value by knowing the right questions to ask and the right way to ask them. They also know how to optimize participation in your employee surveys, they are able to generate useful results reports quickly, and they are able to analyze your findings objectively and provide recommendations for achieving significant results. 

Employee satisfaction surveys/employee engagement surveys should include at least 40 questions and as many as 70 questions organized in logical sections/topics in order to gather information and insight about a broad range of issues. In addition to asking employees to provide ratings for each question, they should also have the ability to provide their comments and suggestions after each question. A comprehensive employee survey typically includes the following topics: 

- The Work Itself / Work Environment / Safety

- Decision Making / Empowerment

- Quality, Customer Service & Work Performance

- Innovation and Change

- Processes/Procedures

- Reward & Recognition / Compensation & Benefits

- My Manager

- Training/Development/Opportunity

- Teamwork / Collaboration

- Communications

- Employee Engagement

- Senior Management Effectiveness

- Commitment to Company Direction

Once employee satisfaction surveys/employee engagement surveys are conducted and the findings are analyzed it is important to take action based on the findings and to track progress in achieving increases in employee and business performance and competitiveness. Conducting the assessments annually will determine how well change is being managed and executed, and identify new problems and opportunities that have surfaced during the past year.

Other types of employee surveys/HR Surveys that will enable your organization to identify opportunities to save money and increase performance and competitiveness include employee benefits surveys (identifying employees’ preferences for and satisfaction with your benefits program), sales force surveys (identifying what needs to be done to increase the performance of your sales people), employee turnover surveys (identifying reasons for high turnover and how to increase retention) and HR scorecard surveys. Human Resources scorecard surveys assess HR customer satisfaction with the full range of HR services typically including benefits planning and administration, HR generalists/HR business partners, compensation planning, HRIS, recruiting/hiring and other HR services.

Conducting an employee survey is significantly less costly than performing consulting studies to identify problems and opportunities, and it is the best way to gather comprehensive feedback from your employees on a wide range of HR issues. Whether your company is highly profitable or it is losing money, surveying your employees and taking action on the findings will generate significant increases in performance, competitiveness and profit.

Tags: Boosting, Company's, Competitiveness, Employee, Surveys
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by nimboo

How Employee Engagement Surveys Can Revitalize Productivity Within Your Organization

Having a proven and strategic system of employee engagement can ensure that managers are attuned to the thoughts and aspirations of their employees. This extended level of coordination within an organization can improve business productivity by fostering a team environment where each member’s input is validated.

Utilizing years of experience within the human resources industry, TalentKeepers understands the key dynamics behind employees’reasons for joining, staying and leaving organizations. Founded in 2000, the company provides organizations with proven employee engagement strategies that accelerate productivity and stronger revenue. TalentKeepers ensures that their clients have all the necessary tools to inspire their workforce through award-winning solutions in the areas of employee engagement activities, on-boarding solutions, leadership development training, and other key areas of proactive employee management.

A key avenue to learn about your employees’ values and needs is through employee engagement surveys. Utilizing employee engagement surveys ensures that employees know that their feedback is highly appreciated and helps to increase employee commitment to the company brand. Indeed, the effective use of employee engagement surveys can actively drive employee productivity and reduce voluntary turnover, while strengthening the core relationship between a manager and their team.

The FirstFit survey and Hand Shake Meeting start with a non-anonymous employee engagement survey, which asks employees what attributes they value most in a leader. This is a vital tool for both incoming and current employees and the results from this relationship-strengthening tool are instantly available to leaders for review.  This survey is perceived very strongly as positive because an employee is sharing what he/she values most in any leader and not rating the current leader.

Once the FirstFit survey has been completed, a Hand Shake Meeting will take place between the leader and each member of his/her staff in order to facilitate an in-depth discussion of the results derived from the survey.  During this meeting, the leader will listen and learn how each employee defines the leadership competencies most important to him/her in a leader.  During the second part of the discussion, the employee will commit to raising any concerns to the leader that may impact engagement.  This two-way conversation completes the Hand Shake Meeting and begins to boost relationships immediately.

Also included within TalentKeepers’ superb range of employee engagement surveys is an anonymous survey called TalentWatch. This precisely measures the reasoning behind employees joining an organization, staying, and why they would consider leaving.  TalentWatch examines the core motivating factors of an engaged workforce for the purposes of helping the organization achieve employee commitment, high performance, a satisfied customer base, and a productive and profitable organization.

The TalentWatch employee engagement survey is exceptionally easy to implement within any business size and offers an immediate web-based reporting feature, which will act as the hub for all benchmarking data derived from the survey. These reports provide easy-to-understand, actionable results down to the front-line leader as well as group reports for all management personnel to examine the trends within their organization and refine their workplace practices to increase engagement within their teams.

The experts at TalentKeepers are also adept at developing customized employee engagement surveys, which can be utilized to measure employees’ opinions on other subjects related to the business such as competitor products or services, performance planning, and cultural changes.

Regardless of the driving factors behind the creation of the employee engagement survey, TalentKeepers has the experience and the expertise to ensure that your company receives highly valuable, actionable results. Contact TalentKeepers today and visit their website at talentkeepers to discover how their industry leading solutions can bring a cohesive team environment to your organization.

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Tags: Employee, Engagement, Organization, productivity, Revitalize, Surveys, Within
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by gillesklein

Unleashing Your Organization’s Ingenuity — Employee Surveys Can Help

Ingenuity is the ability of your organization and your employees to invent new products and services and new, better ways of doing all the things done across your organization every day. Ingenuity includes coming up with and implementing better processes, policies and business practices. Successful ingenuity/innovation includes two key components, coming up with new ideas and then implementing those ideas. 

Ingenuity requires a corporate culture that encourages positive change, that removes barriers to innovation and change, and that puts in place an environment and resources that nurtures, accepts and rewards positive change. Ingenuity often requires collaboration and teamwork. Ingenuity also requires a corporate culture that allows and encourages employees with new ideas and approaches to challenge the status quo and established “business practices” without fear of retribution. 

In “ingenuity friendly” organizations employees are comfortable challenging people that are more senior than themselves and managers at all levels are open to having ideas, processes, policies and business practices challenged. A really good book describing a national and corporate culture environment that is “ingenuity friendly” is “Start-up Nation” by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. The book describes the national and prevailing corporate culture in Israel. It is must reading for any organization wanting to become more innovative and “ingenuity friendly”.

Employees in ingenuity / innovation friendly companies are highly engaged. They tend to enjoy their jobs and keep thinking about the challenges of their work around the clock. They are Inspired to come up with ideas and to get their ideas implemented. 

Employee Satisfaction Surveys / Employee Engagement Surveys Assess Your Organization’s Ingenuity/Innovation Culture: 

Employee satisfaction surveys / employee engagement surveys / employee opinion surveys assess the organization’s ingenuity / innovation and entrepreneurial culture and identify the barriers to ingenuity / innovation and entrepreneurship. Here are some of the questions typically included in our customized employee surveys. Employees are asked about their level of agreement with these question statements and are able to provide their comments and suggestions for each question: 

1 – Our company encourages positive change and new ways of doing things.

2 – I am encouraged to come up with innovative ideas on the job.

3 – My ideas and suggestions are given serious consideration by my 4 – manager and other who need to consider and approve ideas.

4 – I have authority to make important decisions that affect my job.

5 – Within my team, employees are encouraged to exchange ideas.

6 – I can disagree with my manager without worrying about getting into trouble.

7 – My team and I can take action without excessive formal approval processes.

8 – A sincere effort is made to understand the opinions and thinking of people in our company.

9 – Communication between teams and departments occurs on a regular and effective basis.

10 – My work gives me a feeling of accomplishment.

11 – I have the resources and equipment/technology I need to do my job.

12 – I have access to the information I need to do my job.

13 – Actions are seldom delayed because of the number of people who must be involved in the decision-making process.

14 – Our company encourages and actively supports entrepreneurial actions, positive change and new ways of doing things.
Organizations that embrace ingenuity / innovation and entrepreneurship have a flexible hierarchy. Rather than top down, decisions in these organizations are typically made at the appropriate level by employees that are close to the situation and details. Information flows freely upward, downward and across the organization. 

Employee surveys / employee opinion surveys are a powerful tool for leaders in ingenuity / innovation friendly organizations: 

Leaders in some organizations are cautious about conducting an employee satisfaction survey / employee engagement survey and customer satisfaction survey as well for fear that the survey will identify problems that may make them look bad. In companies with a strong ingenuity / innovation culture, leaders embrace employee surveys / employee opinion surveys as a means of confirming that they do have a healthy ingenuity / innovation friendly culture and they take action based on the employee survey findings. They count on employee surveys to surface new ideas and to identify opportunities for improving performance. 

How ingenuity /innovation friendly is your organization and how do you know?: 

Conducting an employee satisfaction survey / employee engagement survey is a fast and cost-effective way to assess just how ingenuity / innovation friendly your organization really is, and to find out what needs to be done to enhance your ingenuity / innovation culture. The payback can be enormous.

More Employee Surveys Articles

Tags: Employee, Help, Ingenuity, Organization's, Surveys, Unleashing
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by Okinawa Soba (On the Road for a While)

2nd in Series: Work from Home taking Online Surveys and other Job Ideas

Working from home is something just about every adult has contemplated. Working a set schedule in a job where you do the same duties day in and day out isn’t for everyone. For some people, the scheduling and duties aren’t a problem, but finding daycare that is dependable is a problem. For others, paying for transportation, daycare, a wardrobe and meals outside the home overwhelms the benefits of getting a paycheck. For all these people, there is a solution: working from home.

Working from home does have drawbacks that make a person think twice. Many ask themselves a series of questions before making a concrete decision. Is there steady work in my field? Will I have to take a significant pay cut? Where and how can I find affordable benefits? Should I do freelance, sub-contract or try to find a company that has permanent at home employees?

There is a lot of freelance work available online for those in accounting, journalism, writing, human resources and consulting fields. Finding steady work depends completely on how much time you dedicate to searching for employment and where you search. A simple Google search can net you the best places to start working from home in one of these fields.  Benefits for at home professionals are difficult to come by. When you work from home, you are essentially your own boss. You must find health insurance independently and retirement plans are solely your responsibility. Other benefits, such as vacation days, are completely up to your own discretion.

Finding work for at home professionals that pays well is time consuming and the competition can be tight if your field of expertise is common. For example, article writers have tough competition from overseas writers. Because there are many writing freelance workers overseas, they typically underbid their American competition. The results are articles that are low in quality, but cheap to produce.

Creative fields, such as graphic design and accounting, are much less saturated by workers. Freelance graphic design work pays as much as 0 per hour, and companies are pleased to pay this price for high quality work. It’s cheaper than hiring full time staff. A CPA can even get consulting work for higher fees.

If you don’t have a graphic design or accounting degree, but still want to make good money, consider survey taking. Paid online surveys can net as much as per hour and no experience or degree is required. Finding legitimate paid surveys can sometimes be difficult though. Many sites will lead to pages of offers. If you don’t accept the offers and agree to sign up for recurring charges on your credit card, you are not allowed to finish the survey. Some of the best paid surveys that you can find online come from clearing houses. GetPaidToTry is one such clearing house and can be found at http://www.getpaidtotry.com/.

Ultimately, the question of whether or not working from home is for you can only be answered by you. After introspection and discussion with the family, try researching opportunities in your field. You may get lucky and find something you love that pays better than your current job.

Related Staff Surveys Articles

Tags: From, Home, Ideas, online, Series, Surveys, Taking, Work
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by Ken Lund

How to Use Employee Surveys to Increase Employee and Company Performance

Comprehensive Employee Surveys Tell You “What You Need to Know” to Boost Your Organization’s Performance and Competitiveness:

Conducting comprehensive employee surveys, including employee opinion surveys, employee engagement surveys and employee satisfaction surveys is a highly effective way to identify and diagnose problems and opportunities, and to gather information and insight for creating solutions that increase employee and business performance. 

This article includes illustrative comments from a comprehensive employee survey conducted for a business-to-business company with several thousand employees across the U.S. This particular survey had over 70 questions. 

Employee Survey Comments Tell You if Your Company’s Corporate Culture is Healthy and Supportive of Employee Engagement and Performance: 

Thousands of comments were received, pinpointing significant and sometimes alarming problems and opportunities and including suggestions for increasing employee and company performance, and customer satisfaction. The following sample comments illustrate problems with communications, ineffective and difficult managers, lack of empowerment, the effect of compensation on employee engagement/loyalty, technology and process problems, and other issues negatively impacting employee engagement and satisfaction, customer satisfaction and company performance. Some of the comments describe discrimination and abuse situations that can lead to costly law suits from employees and negative impact on company reputation. 

Employee survey comments and suggestions provide the information, perceptions and insight your organization needs to compete, survive and thrive: 

Illustrative Employee Survey Comments: 

Read the following employee comments and suggestions and you will likely agree that conducting comprehensive employee surveys makes much more sense than limited question surveys. 

No sane Board member, C-suite leader, senior manager, mid-level manager or supervisor wants to hear comments like the actual comments shown below. Failure to gather honest, comprehensive feedback from employees and to take prompt action demonstrates ineffective leadership and the likelihood that the organization will fail to compete effectively and perform at high levels. 

The following representative survey questions are followed by illustrative verbatim comments. The survey included many additional questions that gathered comments equally revealing as these illustrative comments: 

Departments Communicate Effectively with Each Other:

“Sometimes service, operations, billing, etc… don’t communicate effectively with each other. I had to pull teeth last week just to get my customer an expected delivery date… we almost lost the deal because nobody seemed to KNOW anything… they just passed me along to another person, who would recommend talking to the previous person.” 

Feel Comfortable Going to Manager with Problems:

“He uses intimidation and threats to communicate issues to us. I have ZERO trust that what I may discuss with him, will be taken seriously. Or that I will be labeled something like “Troublemaker” or “Whiner” because I am asking questions about some of his decisions and changes or just other questions in general”

 Feel Good About Working for Manager:

“He has only been at this branch for a year and I am counting the minutes till he hopefully leaves. The way he manages, he is only making everyone feel like they are walking on egg shells, and that is not a positive environment to be in. That is why I do my best to stay away from the office unless necessary.” 

Company Communicates Effectively:

“I have a manager who never communicates anything.” 

Feel Good About Job Overall:

“I have lost quite a few deals over the last 12 months due to our “Oracle” issues related to billing, and the length of time it takes us to fix problems within the system, whether we are trying to get a customer covered under maintenance, to trying to correct addresses of where equipment is located. I spend 70% of my time on administrative issues trying to keep customers, rather than selling.” 

Have Information Needed to Do Job:

“Getting critical information (current equipment info, information regarding last sale, etc) often requires exhaustive file searching because up-to-date information is not in the database. This wastes what would have been valuable selling time.” 

Have Sufficient Authority for Job Responsibilities:

“Employees have no authority and management has made that very clear. I am only empowered to make suggestions, and I have observed that those who make suggestions put their jobs at risk.” 

Am Inspired to Do Best Work Every Day:

“I am motivated by making money and that is the only reason I am still here. Reducing the sales commission plan is a real de-motivator” 

Manager Encourages Environment of Openness/Trust:

“My manager creates an environment of hostility and un-trust. I cannot trust my manager to make the right or ethical decision at times. There is obvious favoritism which cannot be tolerated. There needs to be equitable standards for all of us.” 

Manager Listens to Concerns/Interested in My Ideas:

“I love my job, but when it comes to my manager I wish I had another. She talks down to us and has said things to me that made me lose my respect towards her. I try not to talk with or even be near to her. She treats our department like we are six graders. Always talking down to us. does not let me communicate the way I want because she will always interrupt.” 

One Thing Company Could Do to Increase Engagement:

“SOLVE OUR ORACLE PROBLEMS…especially billing errors and problems, we are losing too many customers and it is hurting our reputation in the marketplace. Sales is spending too much time tracking down and fixing Oracle related problems and not enough time selling” 

Job Performance Is Evaluated Fairly on a Timely Basis:

“Performance reviews and compensation don’t reflect reality. Management doesn’t understand that as a salesperson I am doing MANY jobs. They only rate me on selling & not the endless hours of FIXING PROBLEMS that hurt my sales. I spend more time fixing problems than selling. Someone should take responsibility for all the issues that have been presented with Oracle (billing and accounts receivable problems) and other problems hurting sales and customer satisfaction. This month a few sales I put through neither could be delivered or billed due to back order issues and Oracle problems. I also lost one of my biggest customers due to billing problems and very bad field service. Management is truly not understanding what is going on.” 

Would Take a Lot to Get Me to Leave:

“Gutsy question! Good for you. I hope you listen to all of the answers on this. Discontinuing the 401K matching, along with other reductions in bonuses, coupled with increased quotas during an economic downturn definitely cause people to think about other opportunities.” 

Training Classes Effective:

“Much more time was needed to learn Oracle. Training was crammed in one week, when this should have been a two week training class so that all aspect of the job could be covered. Oracle problems are causing our company a huge amount of problems, costs solving problems and lost business. Some of this could be resolved by better Oracle training!” 

Management Values Employees:

“There is no department morale, encouragement or acknowledgement for our hard work. A thank you is like pulling teeth.” 

Things You Like Least About Your Job:

“Office atmosphere, too much conflict and tension because of our manager”

Related Employee Surveys Articles

Tags: Company, Employee, Increase, Performance, Surveys
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Assessing Trust Between Senior Management and Employees — Employee Surveys Provide Striking Results

Achieving high levels of trust between senior management and employees is essential for the sustainable success of any organization. The best leaders earn the respect and trust of the people they lead. Lack of trust between senior management and employees negatively impacts employee satisfaction, engagement and performance. It also impacts customers, competitiveness and profit. The best senior leaders also trust their employees and their employees know they are trusted. 

Employee surveys are an effective tool for assessing the level of trust between senior management and employees. Well-designed employee satisfaction surveys, employee engagement surveys and employee opinion surveys include direct and indirect questions that measure trust between senior management and employees. 

Senior managers, including CEO’s, presidents, chairpersons, etc. should want to know if they are creating a culture of trust. If the results of employee surveys indicate low levels of trust as measured by low rating scores and comments indicating a lack of trust, executive managers will have information for changing their leadership styles in order to increase trust. 

What is the level of trust between senior management and employees in your organization? If asked, how would your company’s employees describe their level of trust? 

Following are representative comments received in two recent employee satisfaction surveys / employee engagement surveys. One employee survey was conducted for a bank with several hundred employees and the other employee survey was conducted for a professional services company with almost 1,000 employees. The level of trust at each of these organizations was rated by employees at less than 3.5 on a five point scale, where 5 indicates a high level of trust. These ratings were lower than the ratings for most of the other survey questions. The comments are illustrative of comments received in similar employee opinion surveys / employee satisfaction surveys / employee engagement surveys conducted in large and small organizations across many industries: 

1 – Employees have a significant level of distrust in senior management. Some employees do not feel they can bring ideas, suggestions and problems to senior managers due to concerns about negative reactions. There is fear, concerns about favoritism, concerns regarding perceived high levels of employee turnover, and some senior managers are less trustworthy than others. 

2 – Some employees are afraid to share their concerns with senior management for fear of being tagged as a “complainer” or being told “you are just feeling sorry for yourself”. 

3 – I don’t really have much trust in the Management

 4 – Too much favoritism 

5 – This is the same person who I went to when I (and my coworkers) had problems with a certain someone. The problem got pinned on me. Don’t really trust her much. 

6 – If people feel intimidated and are afraid to speak their minds, trust isn’t there. 

7 – Right now morale is down and we are looking for senior management to help change this. I think the trust is not there since last year’s cut back, not that it’s their fault it’s just our perception of trust in the whole organization. 

8 – Our EVP uses personal information against you to get you to do what he wants and I have personal knowledge that he has shared my personal situation with others within the organization. 

9 – Unexpected turnover/employee termination rates reduce trust levels considerably. 

10 – Some of our senior managers are very good, some seem to be clueless at times 

11 – The feeling from a lot of employees is that if they complain about an ineffective or restrictive process, they are black-listed which creates a lack of trust. 

12 -I do not feel that I have anyone to turn to to discuss my concerns or frustrations. Not my supervisor, manager or upper management. I feel this is an important aspect of the workforce as we should always feel there is someone to turn to who truly cares and is concerned. 

13 – Would not go to HR if I had a problem to discuss. It is a shame that we have to feel that way 

14 – You don’t know who you can trust. They encourage you to come forward and then you get stabbed in the back. 

15 – There is a lack of trust due to lack of communication on major issues e.g. merger. 

16 – Not for me personally, but other employees seem to have a very low level of trust between themselves and upper management. 

17 – Employees do not trust Senior Management. There needs to be more transparency to create a level of trust between employees and management. 

18 – I have heard different partners that I work with complain that senior management is not focused on the necessary values in order for the firm to be effective and profitable. 

19 – Some of our senior managers need to hold themselves to the same standards that they hold employees to. Ethical behavior should apply to everyone. 

20 – Everything is kept a secret 

21 – What senior management does seems to be for their own good. I can’t tell that it is with the best interest of other members of the firm. 

22 – Lack of trust is possibly the biggest issue here. 

23 – They are sending our jobs overseas. Why should we trust them? 

24 – While I have “trust” as an individual manager, I know there are multiple managers that do not feel a sense of trust. Frankly, I think it may be more to their inability to communicate “upstream” as opposed to failure at the Management level. We all need to take responsibility for being change agents. I want the Executive Committee and Management to be aware however, that management morale appears to be quite low, and that focus internally is quite important at the moment. 

25 – I’m not saying it isn’t starting to happen, but trust is earned, and we aren’t there yet. 

26 – Executive management acts like they do not trust employees and we don’t trust executive management. There is a lot of tension and we are not focusing enough on customers. There is too much micro-management and lack of authority to make decisions.

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