Why Employee Attitude Surveys Fail Essay Example

Why Employee Attitude Surveys Fail Essay 1. What does the Author cite as the most relevant difficulty in measuring an individuals attitudes?As pointed out by Steinberg, W. (2008), it is very difficult to conduct accurate attitude surveys. According to him, it is very difficult a survey which can truly and accurately display an individuals attitude towards his/her working environment. Another main difficulty in measuring attitudes is which tools should be used in order to produce the, best results. In most companies, the management fails to meet the expectations of the workers because they shy off from using the expectation tools. This is because they fear that they cannot be able to meet the expectations of the workers.2. What are some of the conditions that may lead to unsuccessful surveys?Any company’s main objective of operation is to make profit. Therefore the role of the company’s managers is to ensure that they have extracted the best from its workers. However one question has been haunting these manager s for so long: why is it that,   no matter how regularly they conduct survey, the morale, productivity and quality of these employees do not improve?   Steinberg, W. (2008) tries to connect this problem mainly to the conditions in which these managers conduct the surveys. More often than not, most managers conduct these surveys with good intentions of improving employees’ working environment. Their good intentions notwithstanding, in most occasions these managers are not committed to put the survey findings into use. They decline to make the necessary changes that will be key to improving the employees’ working environment thus improving their productivity.In most cases, Steinberg. W. (2008) indicates that, the employees would like to get feedbacks after a survey have been conducted. Contrary to their expectations, most managers rarely or never give the feedbacks of their surveys. This makes the employees to doubt the managers’ motive of conducting the surve y hence leading to dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction in turn will lead to low productivity.Another condition that leads to low productivity according to Steinberg, W (2008) is when the managers conduct surveys to measure how their company fares in comparison with other similar organizations. The moment the realize that they are doing better than other organizations; they decline to make any changes that will ensure the growth of their organizations.The worst of the conditions as Steinberg, W. (2008) underscores is when the management conducts the surveys with the intention of finding a reason to blame for their failure. Their main intention will be to find areas with the highest dissatisfaction and then vent their anger on those heading those departments.3. What is the downside of using a custom survey?Before you start looking for ways of fixing a problem, it is in order that you identify the problem that is to be solved. Steinberg, W. (2008), suggests that, in organizations the most serious problems are those which the management has not identified. He further suggests that, since the custom survey only have questions on where the management feels there is a problem, it will be difficult for it to reveal the problems that have not been identified by the management.   In most instances, the opposite problems which the management does not expect may occur. Most questions in a custom survey fail to address the areas with the most serious problems. Finally, the custom surveys are not as comprehensive as it is required of a survey instrument.4. Who should be surveyed?The success or failure of an organization will be attributed to all the workers who take part in the running of an organization. Steinberg, W. (2008), points out that, for a survey to be considered successful, it must involve all the workers of that organization. He also suggests that, the managerial work groups of all levels should be surveyed since their problems will directly affect the motivation and morale of other workers.5. What is cited as one of the major reasons why surveys fail?As outlined by Steinberg, W. (2008), the major reason why surveys fail is that, in most cases workers never gets feedback on the results of the survey. The employees get that impression that the management conducted the surveys with sinister motives. This will in turn make the workers feel insecure as far as their jobs are concerned thus low productivity.   Ã‚  Ã‚   Secondly, after conducting the survey, the management tends to do wrong things which may lower the workers morale and motivation. Thirdly, after following the right procedure when conducting the surveys, the employees may fail to recognize the relationship between the steps taken and the survey. Finally, the managers may fail to review the finding of the survey thus they will have nothing to present to their subordinates as feedback. Failure to give feedback leads to more employee dissatisfaction.ReferencesSteinberg, W. (2008). W hy Employees Attitude Surveys Fail. An article on human resource.