Employee surveys are a common way to measure employee engagement, especially if you’re busy running a restaurant or a business.
A study by Deloitte showed how engaged employees in the restaurant industry help “create positive customer experiences and reduce costly turnover”. In other words, having engaged and satisfied employees are a key to a restaurant’s success. But are employee surveys the most effective way to measure if your employees are satisfied?
The truth is, there are much better ways to measure employee satisfaction than relying on surveys alone. Surveys can often be misleading and provide inaccurate information. If you’re looking for a more accurate way to measure employee satisfaction, then you need to consider using different methods.
We’ll discuss the pros and cons of employee surveys and explore different ways to measure employee satisfaction.
Looking for Ways to Improve Your Employee Engagement?
Read More: 3 Proven Ways to Increase Employee Engagement
The Problem With Employee Surveys
Many businesses still rely on employee surveys to measure employee satisfaction. While surveys are a great way to get a general sense of how employees feel, there are better ways of getting more detailed information.
Why is it so important to measure employee satisfaction? Well, for one, it helps managers identify problems in the workplace. If you know what’s causing your employees to be unhappy, you can take steps to address the issue.
So if you’re looking for a more accurate way of measuring employee satisfaction, you should consider using other methods besides just employee surveys.
You might be surprised to hear this, but employee surveys are actually not the best way to measure employee satisfaction. In fact, they can often do more harm than good.
Why? Well, because they can often be interpreted the wrong way. Employees might not be comfortable giving honest feedback in a survey, or they might not feel like their feedback is going to make a difference. And that’s not to mention the fact that surveys can be time-consuming and expensive to administer.
So what’s the alternative? There are a number of ways to measure employee satisfaction that are far more effective than surveys.
Here are a few methods you can try:
1. Exit interviews – This is a great way to get feedback from employees who are leaving the company.
2. Employee focus groups – Get together a group of employees and ask them about their experiences at the company.
3. Pulse surveys – Send out short surveys on a regular basis to get feedback from employees on a variety of topics.
4. Employee retention rates – Track how many employees leave the company and why they’re leaving.
What You Should Be Measuring Instead
You’re probably familiar with the routine. An employee survey arrives in your inbox, and you’re expected to spend a half hour filling it out. Then you forget about it until the next survey arrives. HR wonders when their employee surveys are being filled out and spends half their time chasing employees for their answers.
Employee surveys are a popular way of measuring employee satisfaction, but they’re not actually very effective. The problem is that they ask questions about company culture and employee experience, which are difficult to measure accurately.
A regular measurement of how happy an employee is with their job is a much better way of gauging satisfaction levels. This can be done by asking questions such as “How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend?” or “How happy are you with your current role?”
How to Measure Employee Satisfaction
You’ve probably heard of employee satisfaction surveys. They’re a common way to measure employee satisfaction. But there are other ways to do it, too.
One way is to use the Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS). This is a metric that measures how likely employees are to recommend their company to others. To calculate eNPS, subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
The Net Promoter Score is usually used to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty to a brand. It usually measures “customer experience and predicts business growth”. You can use eNPS as a way to measure your employee’s satisfaction and loyalty as well.
Calculate your eNPS: % of promoters minus % of detractors
The question to ask: “On a scale of zero to ten, how likely is it that you would recommend this company as a place to work?”
An employee whose rating is between 0-6 is a detractor, 7-8 is passive, and 9-10 is a promoter.
For example, if you have 100 employees and 30 of them are detractors (they would give your company a score of 6 or lower on a scale of 1 to 10), your eNPS would be 70 (100-30).
If you have a high eNPS, it means you have a lot of happy employees who are likely to recommend your company to others. This is a good indication that your company is doing something right and that you’re on the right track when it comes to employee satisfaction. While eNPS isn’t perfect, it’s a simple way to get a snapshot of employee satisfaction.
Exit Interviews
Exit interviews are a trove of information just waiting to be discovered. You can use this opportunity to understand why an employee is leaving, which managers have positive influences and which managers are unfortunately toxic.
You’re also able to learn more about the market, and understand more about how an employee perceives their work. HBR recommends conducting exit interviews with second or third-line managers, or even conducting an exit interview with a consultant for a more neutral perspective.
The employees who leave may be dissatisfied, but having these conversations help to shape the company even after an employee has left.
Employee Focus Groups
Employee focus groups can be a way to calibrate the answers that you’ve gotten from the surveys that you’re conducting. Use focus groups to dig deep into any issues or problems. Focus groups should be kept small. 6 – 10 people is a good size in order to get good feedback.
Pulse Surveys
“But wait,” you say, “Isn’t this article about not using employee surveys?”
Pulse surveys are made a little different because of its use case and its brevity. Pulse surveys are short surveys (usually 1 – 15 questions long) that are hyper-focused to a specific topic, so you can really zoom in on the issues that concern your employees.
Employee Retention Rates
Looking at employee retention rates can show the overall health of the company. It can also be an indicator of employee satisfaction. Of course, retention rates could be affected just because of the nature of the industry.
The restaurant industry’s Achilles heel is famously manpower. We’re always looking to reduce staff turnover. It doesn’t mean that employee retention rates should be ignored, and a good restaurant or retail business should be looking at ways to keep their retention rates high.
The Benefits of Measuring Employee Satisfaction
You might be tempted to just do employee surveys when you want to measure employee satisfaction. But there are other ways of getting a clear picture of how your employees feel. Surveys only cover the half of it.
Not to mention, surveys can be expensive and time-consuming to put together and administer. They can be biased as well since employees might not feel comfortable giving honest feedback.
Another way to measure employee satisfaction is to look at employee retention rates, turnover rates, and absenteeism rates. If you see that these rates are going up, it could be a sign that your employees are unhappy.
You can also look at your company’s culture. Measuring employee satisfaction can give you a bigger picture of how your company culture is doing. If you see that the company culture is negative, it’s probably going to have a negative impact on employee satisfaction.
How to Use the Data to Improve Employee Satisfaction
It’s time to ditch the employee surveys.
Surveys can be a great way to measure employee satisfaction. But they’re not the only way. And they’re not always the best way.
If you’re only relying on surveys, you’re missing out on a lot of valuable data. You’re also not doing your best to improve employee satisfaction.
There are a lot of different ways to measure employee satisfaction. You can use surveys, eNPS, ESI, or 1-on-1s. Each of these methods has its own strengths and weaknesses. But the key is to use them all together to get a complete picture of how your employees feel about their jobs.
How Employee Satisfaction Should Be Measured
For a real understanding of employee satisfaction, use other methods of measuring employee satisfaction with employee surveys. Surveys alone are often too vague and they don’t give you the feedback that you need to improve employee satisfaction.
Each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages, but they all provide a more accurate picture of employee satisfaction than employee surveys do alone. Try out a few of these methods and see which ones work best for your business.
Make Scheduling Your Employees Easy with StaffAny
StaffAny helps business owners reduce work dedicated to scheduling and time-tracking, as well as reduce the cost of operations by minimising time theft and overtime spend.
With StaffAny, you can keep track of who’s working and when, easily send out shift reminders or updates, and spend less time doing the nitty gritty work of scheduling.
