What are the New Survey Tools Available to HR Practitioners?

Human Resource professionals must build a strong company culture.  As HR leaders, we must focus on what is working well at as well as identifying and correcting critical challenges on the job.  This effort is part of ensuring best practices are maintained.  To support progressive HR practitioners, Innovative HR Solutions is excited to announce that we have revamped our current four survey products and are now offering a new subscription service to our latest product, the Pulse survey.  Here are the highlights of our survey tools:

Pulse Survey

The Pulse Survey is an employee survey that provides a quick overview of your employee’s satisfaction and attitude towards the organization over time.  This survey is designed to quickly evaluate and provide management with a snapshot of the organization along with trend analysis on either a monthly or quarterly basis.  This survey can also be administered annually.  This product is very cost effective and typically can be launched within 5 days of the engagement.  The Pulse Survey demonstrates to employees that their opinion and ideas are considered important.

Check-Up Survey

The Check-Up Survey is a targeted employee survey that provides a quick snapshot of your employees' satisfaction level and attitude towards the organization.  Typical reasons why companies conduct a Check-Up includes assessing employee attitudes following a merger or acquisition, determining the organization’s success in reducing turnover, or evaluating employee satisfaction following the completion of a total compensation realignment.  This survey is designed to examine a wide range of issues quickly and efficiently.

Comprehensive Survey

The Comprehensive Survey provides a detailed analysis of your employees’ satisfaction level and engagement towards the organization.  Our clients have found that employees not only have questions, but they also have the answers. By listening to your employees and acting on the survey results, you will be able to identify organization-wide strengths and build upon them.  A Comprehensive Survey can assist the leaders in determining if their managers are respected, identify any communication roadblocks, assist with fostering a collaborative work environment and ensure that the strategic vision of the organization is aligned with the current business realities.  Employees who are engaged are far more productive than those who are not.

New Hire Survey

The New Hire Survey is for employees who have been with the organization between 30 and 90 days. This survey gives HR leaders a better understanding of the new employees' attitudes towards the hiring process, job goals and expectations, supervision and training programs.  The New Hire Survey will help employers refine their hiring process in order to get the best talent in the most efficient and effective manner and monitor new employee satisfaction at an early stage to better align employee engagement with the employer’s needs.

Exit Interview Questionnaire

The Exit Interview Questionnaire allows your departing employees to offer suggestions for making your company a better place to work.  By listening to your departing employees and acting upon the results you will be able to identify organization-wide challenges and take corrective action.  Departing employees need only spend just a few minutes answering the standard or customized questions that you ask. Innovative HR Solutions' Exit Interview Questionnaire is designed to examine a wide range of organizational issues quickly and efficiently.

How Can HR Metrics Help Me?

We all know that the past couple of years have been very challenging.  Some of us experienced reductions in staff resulting in colleagues losing their positions along with budget cuts and a stronger focus on expense control.  This reevaluation of organizational objectives has led to greater stress on the job along with very difficult Human Resource decisions.  As a profession, we are also learning that understanding our business, partnering with the leaders within our industry and changing our tactics is critical to our remaining relevant.

Once again we need to re-adjust our approach as the paradigm has shifted from retrenchment to expansion.  Preserving our company’s competitive edge by retaining our high performers along with the use of HR metrics will allow us to be better positioned as the recovery continues.  As HR professionals one of our goals for the remainder of 2014 and beyond will be to retain talent by looking for alternative ways to respond to the current business climate, offer our employees value and provide management with the support to make quality business decisions.

The Human Resource profession over the past decade has become very sophisticated by utilizing metrics to examine employee trends in order to better anticipate future challenges and opportunities.  When we use HR metrics and evaluate historical patterns we are better able to respond to the challenges we face on the job.  A key challenge is determining if our reward and benefit dollars are being used wisely.  Metrics are a common measurement across all professions and are used as a way to retain, challenge talent and hold people accountable.  The analysis and subsequent data following an employee survey is a key tool in determining employee satisfaction, engagement and management effectiveness.  As companies expand, talent retention is often critical to its very survival.  Understanding and responding to these employees’ concerns and questions are important components in ensuring that success.

 

In the past, our clients have often requested that we create norms that would provide a benchmark against their industry or region in the country. Today, however, we have begun to see a shift from benchmarking within one's own industry toward benchmarking against other “best places to work”. This is particularly true with regard to benchmarking in the areas of organizational climate, culture, engagement, management and leadership.  Our review, as outlined below is based on data collected from over 60,000+ respondents and from organizations representing a broad cross-section of industries and regions of the country.

Today, employees are satisfied with their jobs.  Employees appreciate that management is operating the business efficiently, often under conditions of uncertainty and with limited resources.  Employees also believe that the work environment is safe and opportunities for advancement will occur as long as performance is maintained.  Key challenges for the future include:

 

n  Maintaining effective employee management relations

n  Ensuring that a team environment is supported and encouraged

n  Maintaining a progressive compensation program

n  Supporting a leadership team that is decisive

n  Opportunities for career advancement

n  Benefit programs that offer security and protection for the employee and eligible dependents

 Illustrated below is a chart summarizing the data:

 

 

Over the next several months we will be sharing data with our subscriber’s specific data with respect to employee satisfaction and engagement.  Our goal by publishing this data is to assist our client’s in gaining more knowledge about the workforce which will enable them to make sound business decisions.  In our next post we will discuss areas of employee satisfaction and challenges for the future with respect to progressive employee management relations. 

Why Conduct an Exit Interview in Person?

Today with technology impacting so many facets of the Human Resources function many employers today are migrating away from the in-person exit interview.  This trend, may save time and be the most efficient way to collect data but it is not always the best decision from a talent retention perspective.

An in-person exit interview should always be conducted with those employees that either have a long history with the company or have demonstrated excellence on the job or both.  Based upon the criteria established by the Human Resources department, key leaders in the HR function should make effort to follow this four step program to evaluate the reasons behind the employee’s departure.

Step #1 Evaluate the Departing Employee’s Work History

Following the receipt of a letter of resignation Human Resources should conduct a mini-audit to review the background of the departing employee to include work history, performance reviews and career progression.  If the employee has a long history with the organization and/or has exhibited excellence on the job, the employee should be encouraged to have a one-on-one meeting with Human Resources.  This meeting would be in addition to taking the web-based off-boarding survey.

If the departing employee has been a marginal performer then the on-line exit interview may be sufficient. 

To ensure consistency if any employee regardless of performance or tenure wants to have a one-on-one meeting this request should always be afforded to the employee.

Step #2 Prepare for the Interview

Preparing for the exit interview is key to obtaining information from the employee.  By reviewing the departing employee’s performance reviews, career history and salary progression the HR conducting the exit interview will be a better position to ask probing questions, understand the complexities of the job and learn more about the challenges the departing employee faced each day.  Good preparation by HR can also lead towards the departing employee having a positive impression of the company and allow for any issues to be explored and documented.

Step #3 Conduct the Exit Interview

Critical to conducting the exit interview is the ability to deviate from the standard questions and explore the reasons behind the employee’s departure.  Often times it is not just one work challenge but a combination of reasons that resulted in the employee resigning.  Listen to the employee, do not interrupt their responses to your questions and ask follow-up questions to ensure your understanding.

The longer service employee will also bring a perspective as to what has changed of the years and how has management addressed these changes.  The employee that has excelled in their career at the company will often share that a lack of recognition, engagement, accountability or shared values were possibly an impediment to their success.  Finding the reason why an employee is departing will allow you to learn more about what motivates and keeps employees engaged.

Step #4 Communicate the Results

Key to conducting an in-person and/or electronic exit interview is the need to act on the findings.  Results by department should be evaluated and measured against previous data.  The goal of spending the time conducting an exit interview and off-boarding survey is to reduce turnover and improve employee satisfaction and engagement.  If Human Resources communicates the findings then management can take action and improve the work environment.

Each of the steps outlined above are intended to allow the HR professional to conduct an effective exit interview and improve the processes for collecting data which can lead to employee retention.

To learn more about the benefits and stages of the exit interview process check out this site for additional information:

http://comerecommended.com/9-secrets-successful-exit-interview/