Measuring employee satisfaction/engagement?

Does you firm measure employee satisfaction/engagement ...and, if so,
do you do internally or via a third-party vendor -- and do you find this
a useful activity?

Thinking about starting such a program and interested in any feedback on
the best way to accomplishment and best practices in implementing and
acting upon.


Thank you very much!

Jeff Kole
Kole Management Co.
Savannah, GA.
[email protected]

I would conduct a file audit to measure work being performed. A manager who is not performing will not renew leases on time or will miss them all together.n They will also be late getting reports in on time on a regular basis. I would check the reports against the rent roll.

There are a lot of other ways to measure performance. Just put a checklist together and do it in-house, unless you have a large company with a big staff.

For measuring employee satisfaction... I wonder how honest employees are going to be if they don't feel that their responses to any type of conversation or survey mechanism will be confidential and free from "retribution" from higher-ups that have an avoidance to change. If your corporate culture is such that communication is open and flows freely, kudos to you! That's a fairly uncommon thing.

What I have seen work well in the past was a confidential survey conducted by third-party, with town-hall type of open meetings for discussion of improvement strategy among all employees (not just corporate-level). The key, though... you have to be willing to truly consider input on improvement from employees and implement what is realistically possible.

You can start by taking a quick look at indicators that folks are/are not happy... what's your turnover rate? What are the reasons employee give when they leave (assuming you do exit interviews)? What are the participation rates of company-sponsored, non-mandatory activities? How often do you do performance reviews, and are team members invited to offer suggestions at this point or any point? Is company policy to promote from within, and if so, how often are you able to fill those positions internally?

Hi Jeff,
Use a third-party company to survey your employees asking questions such as, "Rate your satisfaction with XYZ" options from least to most satisfied, and I definitely agree that asking questions about to improve the employee's level of satisfaction would be valuable. Using this method will eliminate anyone's knowing who responded or who said what (unless Corporate already knows that Jane wants 21 days of annual company paid vacation days because she tells everyone every chance she gets.)

As far as knowing how engaged an employee is, I would think every supervisor can tell you which employees are engaged and which are checked out. For example, if your Maintenance Supervisor walks right past a fallen gutter without noticing it; if your maintenance techs and grounds person walks right past trash on the ground without picking it up (or really, anyone on the team); if the leasing teams' closing number of leases is declining and no follow up is being down; if your Manager cannot tell you how many vacant units and who is on notice and the breakdown of the budget (such as how much has been spent on carpet this year) - then all of these are indicators your onsite personnel is not fully engaged.

In my opinion, conducting the anonymous survey is valuable as it offers each employee the ability to contribute suggestions. I would never depend on employee reviews to reveal this information. These two things may be separate. Your engaged employee may very well perform exceptionally well but may also be planning to go elsewhere, too because there could be better benefits offered, etc.

Amanda,

Thanks for your helpful suggestions!

Jeff

Mindy,

Thanks for your helpful suggestions!

Amanda and yourself emphasized the need for third-party surveys
for the sake of confidentialy and, when we implement this program,
we'll certainly take that route. Thank you!

Jeff