Strategic Surveys

In order to monitor the satisfaction levels of employees and determine whether or not turnover will be an issue, an organization should implement some type of survey to receive feedback. Feedback can be used to address areas of dissatisfaction and improve attitudes in the workplace. It may also allow companies to have a means of comparison to other organizations in their industry. Most companies benefit from using existing measures that rely on workers' self-reports, as these measures often have significant data on reliability and validity, and therefore allow for comparison with other organizations.

In this exercise, please read the mini-case and answer the questions that follow.

Ben was a senior manager at Overland Toys. He noticed that his employees had been having an increased number of absences and never seemed to be in the right frame of mind or paying attention to their roles while at work. He decided that drastic times called for drastic measures, which meant it was time to take action and assess the situation as thoroughly as possible. Ben implemented the Job Descriptive Index (JDI), a standardized measure that emphasizes major facets of employee satisfaction.

After analyzing the results of the JDI, Ben recognized that employees were dissatisfied with the pay and promotion opportunities in the organization. Ben used these results to compare them with the compensation practices and satisfaction at KB Toys, Toys "R" Us, and other toy stores in the industry. The JDI results also demonstrated that employees at particular Overland stores tended to have much higher satisfaction with their colleagues and the work itself. Ben decided to visit these stores and find out why this was occurring and see if there were activities or ideas that he could share with other stores to improve satisfaction levels.

Almost nine months after implementing the JDI at Overland Toys, HR managers decided to introduce a new forced ranking performance appraisal system. When Ben distributed the next annual evaluation of satisfaction using the JDI, he discovered that satisfaction with supervisors had decreased dramatically. Ben surmised that the new forced ranking performance assessment process had something to do with this reduction. He set up meetings with HR officials and, after several months, helped develop a behaviorally anchored rating system that he thought would be effective in improving employees' satisfaction with their supervisors.

Ben also decided to use the JDI as part of the exit interview process. That way, he would obtain valuable information about why individuals were leaving the organization and use it to either improve the overall work situation or to help the individual employee should he or she return to the company.

1) By surveying employees before and after the introduction of the forced ranking performance appraisal system, Ben was able to do which of the following?

A) Check for best practices

B) Emphasize overall satisfaction

C) Allow the company to compare itself with other organizations

D) Assess the impact of policy changes

2) Ben used the results of the JDI to compare compensation practices at Overland Toys with other major toy stores in the industry. It was able to check for differences between units to

A) Establish training programs

B) Benchmark best practices

C) Impact assessment

D) Gain a competitive advantage

3) By analyzing similarities and differences among the JDI results within the organization, Ben realized that some stores had higher work and colleague satisfaction. When Ben tells other units about activities and ideas that the stores with higher satisfaction have implemented, he is sharing

A) Best practices

B) Policy information

C) Measure data

D) Assessment impact

4) If Ben and the HR managers do nothing about the promotion opportunities in the organization, employee satisfaction is likely to be __________ than it would be in the absence of a survey.

A) Higher

B) The same

C) Lower

5) When Ben decided to use the JDI as part of the exit interview process, he was using a(n)

A) Strategic retention policy

B) Satisfaction strategy

C) Turnover policy

D) Employee assistance program