By Benen Geir
Every company owner should want a happy workforce. It is important that your employees feel engaged, listened to and that their voice actively matters within the organisation. A workforce that feels like it has a say in how things work and can build a real career path in their place of work is much more likely to be committed for the long-term and to perform to a high standard on a consistent basis. One way to ensure that you understand the thoughts of your employees as a boss, is to actively put in place employee engagement panels and surveys, looking for genuine feedback and ideas from your staff to make the workplace more effective, more productive, happier and to have high morale in all departments.
Employee surveys and panels could be even more important than usual with the way 2020 has been. With the Covid-19 pandemic and different versions of lockdown, social distancing measures and more flexible working patterns for many industries, it is important to hear the voice of your employee to see how they are feeling. For example, it might be that a large percentage of your workforce would favour a more flexible working pattern in the future, or a change to a four-day working week for example. Without hearing what they have to say, you’ll never know for sure what the best approach is to make your employees happy and productive.
You want to know if your employees are happy, if they are passionate and why. On the flip side, if your employees are unhappy, you can only change things for the better if you know about this and can put in place plans to change that. You never want to lose invaluable employees and by making sure your staff are heard with employee surveys and panels you are demonstrating that they are very important to you, that you will listen to them and that there is a clear and defined career path for them to follow without having to leave your organisation for pastures new.
In a similar way, we’ve seen a change in how many processes take place in different industries over recent years, with automation a worry for some people working in certain industries and types of work. If your company could save money by changing some processes and protocols and using automation, speak to your employees first about it, and see what their thoughts are. You can use the feedback to put their mind at ease and lay out a plan that shows them they are still central to your goals even with changes planned.
Working with experienced companies that can put together employee panels and surveys will provide your company with the chance to build a bank of knowledge and insight into how your employees think and whether they are happy or not working for you. The answers that you receive from an employee survey can often be enlightening and allows every company to build an honest and enjoyable place of work where every single member of staff feels important and heard.
