An Idea Whose Time has Long Come: EMPLOYEE satisfaction scoring?

[SmilingBluEyes]

Shift the focus from patient satisfaction to employee satisfaction

YES AN IDEA WHOSE TIME has LONG COME! Thanks, KevinMD!

When will employers actually give a damn about EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION? It's linked directly to business success.

A worthwhile read.....................................what do you think?

I say, drop Press-Ganey and start caring about your work force and watch the changes happen. "Customers" READ: Patients -------are NOT always right!!!

[Beagle36]

We have a policy in our HR department that all employees are required to appear happy and say only positive things about the company at all times, even when off-duty. Complaints or documented instances of non-happiness are "punishable by progressive dicipline up to and including dismissal". That pretty much decides the survey results. Does ANYONE really believe they don't know exactly who put what answers on the survey?

Hmmm, sounds like you have a lawsuit there. Free speech and all...

[klone, MSN, RN]

Hmmm, sounds like you have a lawsuit there. Free speech and all...

Free speech will prevent you from being arrested or imprisoned. It doesn't protect you from being fired.

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

Hmmm, sounds like you have a lawsuit there. Free speech and all...

Sorry, free speech doesn't apply to employees. It is a right guaranteed to protect citizens from our government & criminal prosecution.

Employers routinely infringe on our freedoms, and pay us for the inconvenience.

‘Free Speech’ Can Be Costly in the Workplace | 2014-06-03 | Workforce.com

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

Every employer I've ever had did them and then did nothing with the results. My hospital made a big deal of doing a national survey- NDNQI- every 2 years. The results the year I left were absolutely horrendous, our scores had dropped significantly in every area with people saying they didn't plan to still be at this job in the future, they weren't happy, they wouldn't recommend their loved ones seek care there, etc. The section about our manager was particularly horrible. ZERO was done about it. They harped on the fact that our scores were still "better than the national average" even though they'd all dropped significantly compared to our last survey.

My current employer is so small that it's impossible to fill it out and not have them figure out who you are.

[FurBabyMom, MSN, RN]

At our facility it's not an illusion. Those departments that scored low on the employee satisfaction survey are identified. The staff has several meetings with an HR representative where we discuss the questions that we scored the lowest on. Then we identify the top three most important questions and come up with possible solutions. After several meetings, the HR rep then takes this to our manager and a discussion is held on what can be done to address those issues.

Right now two things are currently in the works to address the issues our department had that prevented high employee satisfaction.

If a department scores low for 2 or more years in a row, then the manager is put on a corrective action.

This is true where I work now too. Managers are put in corrective action after two years of a score below a predetermined level (when the results come back for the second consecutive year). Each year the work group/unit is below this level there is a planning meeting to set goals and determine what can be done to "fix" it. To my knowledge after 3-4 years, managers are re-assigned (or taken out of management) unless there is concrete progress that basically would prove employees unfairly rated things.

Right now our staffing is horrible in my department. We're a very specialized unit (I work in the OR). Even if they hired people to fill all our open positions right now we still wouldn't be fully staffed until mid-late summer by the time they are oriented. We had some people leave of their own accord or go per diem, and we had some leave (with some encouragement) who needed to leave.

Even though things are far from ideal right now they're nowhere near what my last job before this was like. It could always be worse. Much worse.

[she244]

I do not bother filling out Employee Survey's knowing as everyone has said they are not anonymous. I have not heard or seen any improvements from the survey's.

[AgentOrange]

I have not seen anything good come from employee surveys. Issues I've seen, the surveys are not anonymous, in spite of their claims to be. I have seen immediate supervisors punished or in trouble because of negative surveys, even though the problems put into the surveys pertained to issues that only upper management had any control over. Employees being coerced by their immediate supervisor to give good reviews, sometimes with the immediate supervisor insisting on being present while the survey is filled out. Departments that gave negative reviews punished by having to attend mandatory meetings on the issue and forced to come up with "action plans" to increase their department morale (as if the employees themselves are to blame for the bad morale, not because of circumstances controlled solely by upper management.) Employees who refuse to fill out the surveys getting in trouble with management and being blamed for "bad morale" in the department (again these surveys aren't anonymous, and management knows who did and didn't fill one out.)

It it exciting to hear that some places actually did have positive results from these surveys. Certainly the idea of employee satisfaction surveys is good in theory, it just seems in practice it is nothing more than a feel-good exercise for upper management to pat themselves on the back, and employes that don't positively participate get in trouble.

[dede1956]

must be nice. we are told that the survey is voluntary but if you don't do it, you are harassed until you either do the survey or lie and say you did. if mgt did something with the results staff would be more inclined to fill out the survey. I used to do them ignored the demographic section except for the dept where I work (need that so they know who you are evaluating). because the scores are so very low, staff is told to pick a couple of the low sections to "improve mgt's scores." why are we supposed to fix their scores? if we have a poor eval then we need to fix our scores, but this is mgt scores...aren't they supposed to fix their own scores?

[LadysSolo]

My employer does one periodically - nothing ever comes of it. So why waste my time filling it out..... Plus it is sent to your employee e-mail, like they can't figure out where the reply came from?