Surveys as risk management tools
Well designed organisational surveys are profitable for your business. They operate as risk management tools, helping organisations to prevent problems before they occur. They can help identify/prevent inapproriate hires, inappropriate promotions, poor organisational culture, unsafe practices, misconduct, poor leadership and burnout.
Alternatively, not identifying these issues and having unengaged, unsuitable, underskilled, risk-taking employees can prove very costly in terms of an organisation’s bottom line and reputation.
A case study
A large sales and marketing organisation had noticed a decrease in profits and an increase in staff absenteeism. They were unsure why this had occurred and engaged PeopleMetrics to assist.
We ran a number of organisational surveys, including the Employee Attitudes & Committment Survey and the Leadership Development Survey. We identified that a recent change in leadership in the organisation and a reduction in the allocation of resources to training had resulted in employees feeling stressed, under-resourced and mistrustful of management. Leadership changes had been made without the appropriate testing and the hires were therefore under-skilled. This impacted their ability to manage staff appropriately, resulting in decreased job satisfaction and increased absenteeism. Staff also felt that they had not been appropriately engaged in the leadership changes.
We made a number of suggestions to assist the organisation in making their workplace fairer, to improve communication and to ensure that people were in jobs that were appropriate for their skills. These included staff training, increased meetings and other forums for discussion/updates and job redesign. We also suggested psychometric testing for the purposes of organisational restructure and for all new candidates.
At a six-month review the organisation reported that they had updated their organisational goals, their profits had returned to the level they were at prior to the issues, and staff absenteeism had halved. Survey results showed vastly improved workforce motivation and committment amongst employees. Psychometric testing had helped reduce the time and cost involved in recruitment and improved morale by ensuring people were well suited to their jobs.
If you’d like more information about our surveys and how we can improve your business, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
