The Magic of Employee Satisfaction Surveys

CARING Magazine August 2008
Dr. Robert Fazzi, Managing Partner
Eileen Freitag, Partner

If you ask one employee questions related to their work experience and level of job satisfaction, you get answers, but the answers only represent one person’s point of view. Do they represent the view of everyone else in the organization? In their department? On their team? You don’t know!

If you use a staff satisfaction survey to survey everyone in the organization, you’ll get something worth noting. Assuming you have a valid survey and you used a process that was safe for people to answer confidentially, you will quickly and accurately find out how your staff really feels about their work experience– what they like, what they don’t like, and even what they would like the organization to do that would improve their level of satisfaction and morale. It’s good information, but not good enough! The magic is yet to come.

The Magic of Segmentations

Agencies that use staff satisfaction surveys know that the real magic is not in having total numbers, but rather in having segmented analysis – analysis that breaks down responses by office, by department, by team or by any other factor you want. It is here that the real value of surveys comes into play.

Most surveys provide a summary of total responses by question as well as segmented responses. Nearly all use scales for most of the questions. Fazzi’s Staff/Insight® Survey, for example, uses the “agree/disagree” scale, i.e. strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree and strongly disagree.

In response to a statement like, “I feel I get an appropriate level of support from my superiors,” the overall agency score may be 80%, i.e. 80% ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’. But, when you segment the question, you may find that 100% of administrative staff responds with ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ while only 60% of clinical staff responds that way. Uh-oh, you’ve got a problem.

Bad News/Good News

The bad news is that you have a problem. It is a problem that is no doubt affecting clinical staff morale. It may be affecting their motivation and certainly could be affecting turnover and retention. If turnover is a problem (i.e. you have annual rates greater than 15%), it can even affect your profitability. Here’s why:

National studies on the cost of turnover conservatively report that for each person you need to replace – recruit, hire, train and deploy – it will cost the agency 1.5 times that employee’s annual salary and benefits. For example, if a nurse’s cost is $80,000 ($60,000 salary plus $20,000 benefits), it will cost you $120,000 in the first year ($80,000 x 1.5 = $120,000). Note: To find out the actual cost of turnover in your agency, you can put your own numbers into Fazzi’s Turnover Calculator.

Now the good news! Since your survey segments responses by department, it also segments responses on what staff in each department like and don’t like about working with your agency. It also provides you with concrete recommendations by department for how you can most effectively improve satisfaction, morale and retention. What you quickly realize is that you may not have an agency problem, you have a department problem.

Now, here is the best news of all: Even when you have an issue that impacts staff throughout your agency, just by having a clear sense of what the issue is, you can target your change efforts and maximize your impact.

This was, in fact, what Evelyn Savage, the CEO of Somerset Hills, NJ found. “We have found it helpful to conduct a staff satisfaction every few years. On our last survey, we found we had an issue that impacted all employee groups. By having a clear understanding of the issue, we were able to develop and implement a targeted plan to remedy the situation. We just completed our most recent survey. Results indicated that satisfaction has increased dramatically in that area. Now we will be developing a plan to address issues impacting specific groups of staff. The best part is—we don’t have to guess - we can see our deficits and attack them”.

Employee morale and retention is critical to the future of agencies - especially during a time of staff shortages and growing patient demands. Staff satisfaction surveys help ensure that you have your pulse on the experience and morale of your staff while also having the ability to target improvement efforts. Most importantly, it is not just your staff that will benefit; it is your patients who benefit from consistent, motivated and happy staff.

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Eileen Freitag has over 30 years experience in the home care field. She has served in various operation positions, was marketing vice president and later CEO of one of the largest home care agencies in the US, the Boston VNA. She has also served as president/CEO of a large integrated long-term care system and vice president of Business Development for a start-up software company that specialized in products for seniors. Eileen is director of Fazzi Associates Marketing and Customer Service Consulting Division.

Dr. Robert Fazzi is the Managing Partner and Founder of Fazzi Associates. He is an author, researcher, and consultant who has provided consultation and training to the home care and hospice community for over thirty years. Most recently he has served as Co-Director of the Philips National Study.