Carrying out surveys is an essential part of running a business. They can help you understand your customer, gauge your market share, and measure the performance of business streams.
And it is that same rationale - of measurement and needing to know where you stand - that is behind the workplace surveys carried out by JRA. The firm helps employers pick up on underlying issues that could cause them trouble down the track.
Dr Neal Knight-Turvey, research director and JRA Australia general manager, says managers need to keep their finger on the pulse when it comes to employee engagement.
"A good survey provides a safe, robust communication channel that gives staff the opportunity to provide senior management with their views and opinions - and provide them with solid data on which to base workplace-related decisions," he says.
Workplace surveys, says Dr Knight-Turvey, are vital to business success because they lead to fact-based decision making.
He says relatively few companies measure that most vital contributor to business performance - the company's staff.
He suspects most managers make decisions about employees based on faulty assumptions and incomplete information.
"The best example of this is when we ask senior executives, 'What engages or motivates your people the most?' I'd say nine times out of 10 people will say 'money'.
"But they'd be wrong - because time and again our surveys reveal that people want an engaging job first, with money coming further down the list."
Dr Knight-Turvey says some companies still prefer to live in ignorance.
"It's interesting that while executives will often say people are their most important asset, it's that very asset which is most often neglected when it comes to measurement and monitoring," says Dr Knight-Turvey.
"I think the employee survey should be seen as the link between your human resource pool and the bottom line - the diagnostic tool that lets you identify key people issues that, once fixed or improved, will allow your people to become more engaged and make a greater contribution to your organisation's success as a result."
JRA will be running the JRA Best Workplaces Survey in association with the New Zealand Herald from June 1 to August 31. Registrations are now being taken.
Take part in the Best Workplaces survey 2009 The JRA Best Workplaces '09 survey is run in association with The New Zealand Herald
