How much money—and sleep—are you losing to high turnover, skyrocketing training costs, and employee disengagement?

Let me put that another way.

How much more money would your company be making if your managers and employees were inspired, engaged, well-trained, and fulfilled by their work?

After the largest study of employee engagement ever conducted among U.S. workers, Gallup Management Journal (GMJ, 2006) reported:

• Engaged employees average 27% less absenteeism than those who are actively disengaged. In a 10,000-person company, absenteeism from disengagement costs the business about 5,000 lost days, or about $600,000, annually.
• Business units with many disengaged workers experience 31% to 51% more turnover than those with many engaged employees.
• Replacing an entry-level or frontline employee costs 25% to 80% of that person’s annual wage. Replacing an engineer, nurse, salesperson, or other specialist costs between 75% to 400% of his or her annual salary.

There’s no question that a highly motivated, productive workforce is more profitable and a lot more fun to be around. It’s expensive to lose employees. It’s expensive to recruit, hire and train their replacements, and it’s most expensive of all to lose your best and brightest to another company, especially a competitor.

Why do some employees stay engaged longer than others? People stay engaged when they:

• Realize management is listening
• Witness management taking actions to improve things
• Understand what is expected of them
• Learn and grow on the job and in their career
• See a bright future if they stay

A well-designed employee survey is an efficient, effective, low-cost method for inspiring and engaging your workforce. A survey is both a gathering of views and a conversation between management and staff on things of importance and interest to them both. Through an employee survey you can:

• Demonstrate that management is listening to employees and taking pro-active initiatives
• Find out what your employees are experiencing so you can take action that is meaningful to them
• Involve your own people at every stage so they feel a sense of ownership in the process and the changes to come
• Improve communication throughout your organization
• Receive clear results so you can take action quickly and confidently

What is a “well-designed” survey program? Glad you asked. A well-designed survey can be accomplished quickly, involves your own people at every stage, and results in clear information so management knows precisely what actions to take…and not take.

A well-designed survey program starts by assembling a team of appropriate people from within your organization to participate as members of a Survey Program Design Team and an experienced survey consultant.

When a survey program is developed by this team of knowledgeable employees-aided by an experienced survey consultant-five things happen:

1. The substance of the survey fits the organization perfectly.
2. The survey team ends up owning the process.
3. Management develops an interest in the outcome.
4. Savings from reduced turnover makes the cost of the survey negligible.
5. The likelihood of improvement is nearly guaranteed.

People already know how to improve their organizations. All they need to put their ideas into action is a tool they build, some technical assistance, and a trusted advisor who will steer them around obstacles. Once your company understands what the problems are, how bad they are, and where they cause the most pain, the best actions will be obvious.

What will a well-designed survey program do for you? In simple terms, a survey conveys what is helping and what is hindering people in doing their work. More importantly, a well-designed survey digs down to find:

• Who is holding your people back?
• Who is feeling the most pain?
• Where is it getting worse?
• Who is most likely to leave?

And, when you survey again in a year…

• If the steps you’ve taken have made things better or worse-both financially and from your staff’s point of view.

With a well-designed survey program, you can quickly determine:

• What you can do to reduce turnover
• Where you can raise productivity
• What will lead to improved morale and staff satisfaction
• How to get people to offer helpful suggestions
• How you can decrease or eliminate conflicts
• What is motivating and demotivating your employees

It’s about communication.

Some companies make communication between staff and management difficult. Others take the view that if staff has a problem, they will speak up. Many delude themselves into thinking their workforce is content when it is not.

It only takes one small problem and one disgruntled employee for an entire company or department to develop a destructive “them and us” attitude.

Most efforts to understand what a workforce is experiencing are either impractical or ineffective.

• Executive or CEO announcements are seen as politics, not communication.
• Management-by-walking-around often filters out too much.
• One-to-one meetings between employer and employee are time consuming.
• Suggestion boxes are familiar, but often viewed as goofy.
• Newsletters inform, but can’t open things up for discussion.

A well-designed survey program goes directly to those with the answers and asks questions they recognize as relevant and worth answering. People want to keep management informed-it’s in their interest to do so. They just need a pipeline.

What will doing nothing achieve? If you haven’t recently asked your employees what’s most on their minds, it’s impossible to say. Sorry, but it’s as simple as that.

However, if you’ve read this far, you probably already sense you have a problem on your hands.

Consider this: If too many of your employees are already dissatisfied and unproductive, there are tougher problems just around the corner. Unprofessional behavior, a chaotic work environment-and inevitably, increased turnover-are taking dollars out the door. Your dollars.

You need to know what your employees already know about your workplace or things will get worse.

The good news is, I bring big survey firm expertise to your small or medium sized business for a reasonable fee. How? Because my overhead is me. You’ll be surprised at how little surveys cost when you aren’t paying for a big survey company.

• Big survey firms charge big fees because they have big overhead.
• Big survey firms produce big binders of data because they charge big fees.
• Clients of big survey firms seldom have time to make sense of the binders full of data.
• Clients who can’t understand the data don’t take any action.

The cost of a survey that fails to produce action is way, way too much to spend.

My operation consists of a computer, phone, printer and over 30 years experience working for a few big, rich survey companies.

Plus, I make it fast and easy for you to implement the survey and understand the results through simple reports.

Call 503-241-0595 today to start learning how you can:

• Reduce staff turnover, inspire commitment to your company values, and identify your best and brightest for leadership.
• Find hidden trouble spots lurking in your organization and do something about them before they cause real problems.
• Start improving your bottom line within just a few weeks.

Your initial consultation is free.