Understanding Employee Culture and Satisfaction

Although I am a blogger, I also have a full-time career as a business administrator.  In that role, I am responsible for operations of an urban public school district – anything from financials to human resources.  In 22 years my responsibilities have changed significantly.  The title is still the same but my day-to-day responsibilities are more tied up with strategic initiatives and planning now rather than being task-oriented.

Human resources used to be simply meeting with new employees, completing all the necessary new hire paperwork, potential discipline situations, and exit interviews.  The world has changed.  Much of what I used to do is now automated.  This is good and bad – you would think automation would allow for a reduction in force etc… but instead, it allows us to focus on the greater vision type work and NominakHR.com are an expert in this area and have solutions to meet your needs.

Now I spend my days on employee relations trying to build our work through improved employee culture and satisfaction.  But how do we do that?  Sure I work in schools but the trends are similar whether you work in schools, hospitals, manufacturing, housing, etc…

Top of the list of my priorities is an employee feedback platform.  How can I solicit information from my employees?  It isn’t really about whether they like working here as much as listening to them and involving them in our vision and future. We also use communication tools to get facilitate employees. For us, the work is with children PreK through grade 8.  How can our employees help us achieve success?  Do we all have the same definition of success?  Maybe someone has a revolutionary idea to help us increase student achievement and if so, what are the financial requirements to implement and measure?

In manufacturing, the feedback may be very different such as how to increase efficiencies without compromising safety.   Employees always have something to offer but the struggle is having a corporate culture platform that allows them to freely provide the feedback we seek.

In education we actually have state and federal mandates for training to improve the culture in our work with students such as diversity training, transgender training, etc… But we also have requirements to conduct employee culture surveys in each school at least once a year and a requirement for the central office to respond to the surveys that come back in a way that could be construed as overall negative.  These surveys create a great deal of stress for everyone but if used properly they can help create a culture of mutual respect and understanding. Specializing in every aspect of human resources can prove to be challenging so try leaving certain aspects of your needs to J. L. Nick.  They can guide you through any of your human resources needs.

Other ways to improve employee culture:

Surveys

Often employees will respond to surveys but will not respond in person.  Sometimes it isn’t even about the anonymity but rather it is easier to give feedback when you are not looking eye to eye.

Walkthroughs and observations

Make it a habit of walking through and see how people interact with one another.  Do they look like they enjoy their job?  Ask them what stops them from doing a better job?  Empower them in their responses.

Ask the tough questions and don’t be afraid of the answers

Think about the show – Undercover Boss.  Ask questions and don’t add your bias to the answers.  Take a step back and consider what to do with the information provided.

Pay attention to nonverbal cues

Sometimes it isn’t about what they say or even how they say it.  It could be what is more important is what they aren’t saying!

Learn how to give feedback in return

People want to know that they are “heard” so make sure to give them appropriate and fair feedback in return.