If you were to interview each of your employees to get their thoughts and feelings about working at the credit union-- but in a way that guaranteed anonymity and encouraged candor– what do you think you'd learn? More to the point, would you discover ways to make things work better and improve services for members?
Answer: Absolutely! We guarantee it. Conduct a confidential survey among your people and you'll gain insights into your organization you simply can't get any other way.
But please, do not think of it as "checking up" on your people. See it, instead, as a powerful tool to help you instigate a credit union-wide participatory climate throughout your organization!
Yes, you'll find out what's working and what's not. Yes, you'll identify trouble spots. Yes, you'll get a sharp reading of youremployees' feelings about policies, job assignments, working conditions, how they are supervised, and how they see their individual efforts fitting into the whole.
But also, you’ll:
- Sharpen the performance of supervisors.
- Improve cooperation between departments.
- Identify the need for more training
- Build stronger connections between top management and employees.
- Give your employees a direct, comfortable way to suggest how/where things could be better.
By doing a survey, you formalize the process of listening to…hearing…employees' ideas, suggestions, concerns. Do one annually, and you'll see measured improvement in attitudes and performance. Survey responses will help you increase efficiency, enhance working conditions, improve internal relationships and intensify staff commitment to the credit union and its mission.
And watch what happens when your people realize that management is actually following up on some of their ideas and suggestions!
Net result: Higher morale… Stronger teamwork… More and Better service to members. Your employees, after all, are the ones who ”do” the business of the CU. Their attitudes and intentions determine the critical difference between get-by performance… and real success.
Begin with this premise: People want— to do well, be well-thought-of, be looked on favorably by their peers and be seen as effective performers by those above them. In any work situation, if any of this is not happening, it's because something is not allowing it… or is working to prevent it.
The job of managers and supervisors is to create a climate which encourages all this to happen.
How?
- By making employees the key to the CU's success.
- By listening to them... hearing their views, their ideas, their suggestions.
- By giving high-priority consideration to their well-being... their personal goals...their success
- By giving them a clear, simple vision of the CU's basic performance objectives
- By asking them how to accomplish the basic performance intentions
- By monitoring performance and measuring progress
- By recognizing and rewarding performance and celebrating accomplishments
A professionally administered survey is the easiest, most direct first-step to involving your people, all of them, in changing the credit union for the better.