Excellent Tool : Employee Satisfaction Survey Questionnaire

This downloadable file contains question items that can be used in Employee Satisfaction Survey. The questions explore five key dimensions: company, job, manager (superior), workgroup, career opportunity, and employee benefit. This survey can be deployed on a regular basis (via annual survey for example) and will be very instrumental in portraying true dynamics of employee satisfaction level.

You can download this excellent tool for free at : HR Management - Free HR Tools and Presentation Slides

What work-related variables determine job satisfaction? An extensive review of the literature indicates that the more important factors conducive to job satisfaction are mentally challenging work, equitable rewards, supportive working conditions, and supportive colleagues.

MENTALLY CHALLENGING WORK Employees tend to prefer jobs that give them opportunities to use their skills and abilities and offer a variety of tasks, freedom, and feedback on how well they are doing. These characteristics make work mentally challenging.



EQUITABLE REWARDS Employees want pay systems and promotion policies that they perceive as being just, unambiguous, and in line with their expectations. When pay is seen as fair based on job demands, individual skill level, and community pay standards, satisfaction is likely to result.



SUPPORTIVE WORKING CONDITIONS Employees are concerned with their work environment for both personal comfort and facilitating doing a good job. Studies demonstrate that employees prefer physical surroundings that are not dangerous or uncomfortable. Additionally, most employees prefer working relatively close to home, in clean and relatively modern facilities, and with adequate tools and equipment.


SUPPORTIVE COLLEAGUES People get more out of work than merely money or tangible achievements. For most employees, work also fills the need for social interaction. Not surprisingly, therefore, having friendly and supportive co-workers leads to increased job satisfaction. The behavior of one's boss also is a major determinant of satisfaction. Studies generally find that employee satisfaction is increased when the immediate supervisor is understanding and friendly, offers praise for good performance, listens to employees' opinions, and shows a personal interest in them.

LOYALTY MYTH : Employee Satisfaction Leads to Business Results?



The belief that employee satisfaction is important to business outcomes has been around for ages, as far back as the seventeenth century, when an Italian named Bernardino Ramazzini reported on the feelings of workers who dug and maintained cesspools. There are probably a subsequent 7,000 or more identifiable investigations on the subject. Unfortunately, culling through the findings of these studies looking for relationships between employee morale and standard measures of productivity finds a mixed bag: positive correlations, negative correlations, and, in some situations, no correlations whatsoever.


Similarly studies specifically testing the association between employee satisfaction and business results typically discover some link¬age. Just as was the case with examinations of employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction, they have failed to reveal consistent indications. Some correlate negatively, some positively, and a few fail to show any correlation.


Most investigations into the linkage between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction and, ultimately, corporate profits have tended to study absolute levels of employee measures (e.g., a rating of 7.3 on a 10-point scale). The authors were fortunate to have access to data sets from several firms (both U.S. and European). In exploring the nature of the linkage between employee measures and business outcomes within these data sets we made a surprising discovery: The consistency of employee feelings was more important than the ab¬solute level in building a cause-effect model!


Employees, like customers, appear to establish thresholds of expected performance. That is, they will accustom themselves to less than ideal circumstances so long as those conditions don't worsen. Employees similarly acclimate to thresholds of environment, even though they may be less than perfect. If, however, these thresholds are breached by deteriorating conditions (breaking through a minimally acceptable level), then there are repercussions in employees' performance, and customer feelings and profits are likely to suffer. But if employee attitudes remain constant or advance slowly, without receding, then customer attitudes and profits are more likely to improve. Again, in our data, the linkage to business outcomes was not universal. Unfortunately, firms with satisfied employees can still find themselves losing out to competitors and ultimately going out of business.

Dear Cite HR members,

The attached survey is great. But do you think it will give me any indications about employees' satisfaction degree about their pay levels? Also, is there a special survey for such a purpose (measuring emplyees satisfation about salaries)?

I appreciate your prompt reply as I am requested to prepare a survey in my company next month.

Regards,
Nada Ibrahim

Nada, in the questionnaire you will find some questions that ask about employees' satisfaction with their pay levels. So, yes, I think you can generate some analysis and conclusions based on those questions.

The following description section explores four key elements to create a great place to work.

Element 1 : A Friendly Place
It may sound trite, but friendliness appears to be one of the distinguishing characteristics of good workplaces. People seem to enjoy each other's company. This is not an insignificant issue. Work for an organization is, after all, work in a group setting. It's very different, for instance, from the mostly solitary work of a novelist or a painter. When you work for an organization, other people don't disappear. You are forced to interact with others, with your co-workers and your boss or your subordinates. What you think about your workplace has to do largely with the quality of those interactions.

There Isn't Much Politics Around Here
An atmosphere of mutual respect also affects how people han¬dle power struggles endemic to every human organization. In the workplace, people compete over promotions, choice assignments, and recognition, among other things. Competition can be healthy for both the individuals and the organization— but only if, to use a sports metaphor, the playing field is level. The field tilts when employers tolerate favoritism or practice outright discrimination against people because of sex, age, sexual preference, nationality, religion, etc. But even when the field is level, subverting others is the way to get ahead in some organizations, making employees feel there are no rules or referees.
At good workplaces, employees don't seem concerned about backstabbing. It's in this context that one expression heard repeatedly at good workplaces takes on meaning: "There isn't much politics around here." By that, people mean employees aren't constantly jockeying for position, trying to curry favor with the high-ups, worrying about the impact of their actions on their chances for moving up in the company, or looking over their shoulder to make sure someone else isn't setting them up to destroy their career.

You Get a Fair Shake
Good workplaces offer a dramatic contrast to business as usual in America, where being fair to employees is considered optional. Few non-unionized firms, for instance, have even an elementary grievance procedure that offers any protections. And even strong union grievance procedures only seem to moderate the worst abuses. They don't create an atmosphere of fairness. It may be nice to run a company that values fairness, the argument goes, but what does it have to do with making money? Employees at good workplaces consistently, and often without being asked, make remarks like: "They treat us fairly here," or "The company doesn't take advantage of you," or "You get a fair shake around here."

Extensive research into peak performers in all walks of life shows that they have very similar ways of thinking about themselves and others. They share other similar mindsets, too. Because of this, they operate in similar ways. This article explains what we know about peak performers, whether in business, public service, private life, school, athletics, or team pursuits. People who adopt these mindsets and approaches to life become peak performers, too.

Peak performers have high self-esteem
As we've seen, high self-esteem leads to positive self-talk and an internal locus of control-the ability to choose our own thoughts, feelings, actions and communications. The body language of people with high self-esteem invites the respect of others, just as they treat others with respect.
High self-esteem allows us to take charge of our behavior and communications and direct them towards achieving the challenging goals we set for ourselves. When we have high self-esteem, we expect the best of and for ourselves. That's why peak performers are positive people with positive outlooks and positive attitudes.

They are optimists who see mistake as learning opportunities and problems as stepping They have the confidence to take responsibility and proactively make things happen.

Peak performers have high standards
Have you ever noticed that peak performers surround themselves with other peak performers? They have high expectations of those around them – the people they work with, their friends and associates, their family members. Not unrealistically high expectations, of course, but they certainly don't settle for 'second best'. Why should they?
When we have high standards, we set challenging goals and work hard to attain them. We expect the best of ourselves and for ourselves. We treat ourselves with respect and expect others to do the same.
Because of their high standards, peak performers constantly pursue improvement—to the way they do things, to the systems they work with—in fact, to everything around them. They continually ask themselves two key questions:
1. How can I do this better?
2. How else can I do this?

HR Client Relationships with Employees
The challenge for HR is to enable managers to be people managers and at the same time create the context for employees to flourish and have their needs met. Their work is with the managers as their coach and organizational consultant. HR professionals provide their specialized expertise to help the managers lead their teams, manage performance, and communicate with their workforce. Of course, HR retains its role in employee relations to resolve difficulties that are beyond the manager's competency level. The same pattern will take place within companies as well. To the extent it is possible, HR's responsibility to employees is to create an environment that supports employee self-reliance. Using new technologies for communicating information helps create that environment. However, when employee self-reliance is not feasible, employees want to be managed by their manager. HR has to transfer the role of managing employees to managers, and motivate them to be accountable for people management.

Dear Eric,


this questionnaire is really helpful to me n other HR-Professionals

Thanx.


With Warm Regards,

Archana.. :-)

Archana, hope you can immediately use this tool to explore the satisfaction level of your employees.