We have to fill these in at work. They used to be yearly but now they have increased to once every two months!
There are about 50 questions about what you think about the organisation, how well you think you are rewarded and how do we think the organisation actually believes in and works to its values.
The whole thing is supposed to be anonymous but it captures your cost centre so the answers are matched to a manager, director, division etc and we are supposed to be free to mark the survey as we honestly feel.
At this weeks staff meeting - we are told the staff satisfaction results have fallen off a cliff (3 from 10) and nothing short of a 9 or 10 out of 10 is acceptable!
We are told that we shouldn't put anything in the survey that we are not willing to say to the management (the management who clearly take umbrage re bad news and have been seen shouting staff down for complaining about working crazy hours etc).
We are further told that if the scores are not 9 or 10 next month, then there will be consequences!
Time to let HR know? Not that they have any teeth.
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We are further told that if the scores are not 9 or 10 next month,
>> then there will be consequences!
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You'll have to fill them in weekly.
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>> Time to let HR know?
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...if it mirrors my experience, it'll be an HR initiative. (and, of course, if the scores don't improve then it should be the management suffering any consequences ;-) )
I was out with an ex work colleague for a walk and lunch yesterday, and one of the idle topics of conversation was the fact that work had rapidly gone downhill from the point that "Personnel" transmogrified into "Human Resources".
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Disciplinary action will be taken unless morale improves?
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>>We are further told that if the scores are not 9 or 10 next month, then there will be consequences!
Rather defeats the point of a survey.
I'm guessing that HR is responsible for the survey and the managers are the ones demanding everybody gives them a good report.
As somebody said, if morale is bad then it is management failure. What are you going to do? CYA as far as possible and give it to them straight? Or abstain I guess.
"The beatings will continue until morale improves". I assume you are networking like crazy, sounds as if it's in a death spiral.
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>> I assume you are networking like crazy, sounds as if it's in a death spiral.
They are hugely profitable because we charge significant fees above interest - but they have made it clear that they don't want people of a certain age but the gits aren't giving redundancies. What's so frustrating is that a colleague in another division did just get a redundancy pay-out. It's not the most generous but he's walking away with £30k and it'll fund him the 2 years to his normal retirement date.
Several staff members in the division have walked out over the last few months without notice or pay-outs.
I'm not the networking type - this is my only social media - and to be honest, I'm not sure I want to stay in the industry if I leave it I will not return.
Also, the role I do is reducing in numbers across the industry so the chances of finding a similar role is slim.
I quite fancy doing some straightforward desk work like book-keeping.
Last edited by: zippy on Sun 26 Feb 23 at 01:47
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Are they wanting to reduce staff numbers or replace older workers with younger ones?
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>> Are they wanting to reduce staff numbers or replace older workers with younger ones?
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The consensus is replace with younger ones.
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I meant to say the job sounds as if it's turning bad rather than the firm but the two can go together because if there's something rotten everything will go bad eventually.
I got a job in domestic banking when I was 20 and left 5 years later - my best pal there said to me for years "you did the right thing". When I started, basically anybody (male) with any gumption, tolerant of bureaucracy, and willing to move around could have a reasonable expectation of ending up as a manager in his own branch. How I failed the attitude test is a good story, but the upshot was that I was sent to a backwater so I left.
My pal did quite well, reaching sub-manager in a large city (not City) branch in his late thirties, then it went horribly wrong for a lot of people. The managers were taken out of the branches, lots of functions were centralised. Secretaries who would type up interview notes from dictaphone tapes and file them disappeared and the non-typing managers got laptops. Branches became little more than counters, 'managed' by junior bank officials and later supervisor grades. The lending was put into offices in an industrial estate. My mate had 180 or so customers, a car and a laptop, and because he was conscientious he would spend most evenings and all day Sunday entering up his stuff with two fingers before starting the grind again the following week. He was working himself to death.
He downshifted at 47, and retired on a modest pension 5 years later. Shortly after that Lehman's went bust, Northern Rock folded, and the valuable pile of bank shares he had acquired over years of SAYE schemes lost most of its value. The government bailed out his employer with many billions. Fred the Shred got a £340,000 a year pension.
You don't need to be a networking type. I'm not either. Make a list of the decent people you know through work and call them. Tell them truthfully you are pondering a change, you are contacting a handful of people whose opinion you value, and have they got 10 minutes for a coffee and a chat? You don't need to ask them for a job, if they have one they'll tell you. When they've bought you lunch (quite a few of mine did) and you've thanked them for their time and advice, ask them if they can think of anyone else you might speak to. Most will come up with at least one name/introduction, whether you follow up is up to you. Most people like being asked for advice, especially if you aren't putting them on the spot by asking them to employ you.
I got 2 consulting jobs and a good provisional job offer out of this. I declined the job, which was better paid than my old one was, mainly because it involved a London commute which I have never wanted to do. Once the kids were self propelled and the mortgage was paid off, I tried to avoid things I just didn't want to do. I regret the money a bit, but not the time I would have wasted just having to be somewhere every day.
If you can stand it, you can hang in and hope they boot you out. Just don't let them 'performance manage' you out which they sound quite capable of.
Last edited by: Manatee on Sun 26 Feb 23 at 15:17
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I’m looking at retirement this year, I might do “something” else but it definitely won’t involve a desk!
Nor indeed will it involve being “owned” by anyone.
It will ideally be outdoors too. Or, I might fix bikes for people or something. I’ve got a big shed!
;-)
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When I took redundancy at 55, I got a driving job at the local council - two days a week. Library books, councillors mail and finally, delivering to schools. Suited me, two mile cycle to work and then a 100 mile route with fifty drop offs and pick ups. Paid just below the tax personal allowance, no NI and I met some very nice people (although one head gave me a clip round the ear for being cheeky!)
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>> Or, I might fix bikes for people or something.
>> I’ve got a big shed!
>> ;-)
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You've got got enough work fixing your own bikes and yourself, surely - without going outside for work?
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There is that Duncan! ;-)
Edit - not that it matters and so on, but, perhaps too many “gots” there mmm?
Last edited by: Runfer D'Hills on Sun 26 Feb 23 at 09:45
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Its always been the case (since we became a thing called a resource*) that employee surveys were traceable and used to weed out the non believers.
* Not many of us saw the significance of the renaming of the business area from Personnel to Resources when it happened, should have been obvious really. It used to be there to promote the well being of staff at the workplace, now merely exists to reduce the cost base.
So as they say. The beatings will continue till Moral improves.
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>> Its always been the case (since we became a thing called a resource*) that employee
>> surveys were traceable and used to weed out the non believers.
Of course, thinking such a thing automatically labels you an undesirable.
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>> The whole thing is supposed to be anonymous but it captures your cost centre so
>> the answers are matched to a manager, director, division etc and we are supposed to
>> be free to mark the survey as we honestly feel.
We had that issue when I was in the Civil Service and serving in a small outfit with around 12 staff. Not all were directly employed as we'd found agency people, usually from down under, with legal qualifications to be excellent vfm as policy officers.
This meant that in some areas, for example those asking about new recruits, managers would have a pretty good idea who'd 'dobbed them in'.
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I was with a manufacturing company in the 90s and the MD asked the HR manager to produce a list of 10 people to be made redundant. The HR manager produced a list and took it to the MD, who said "That's fine, now add your name to the bottom!"
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Staff Satisfaction Surveys - sooty123
