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02/01/2012 12:02 PM
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Good day to all of you, in a recent company Lean Org. meeting we were discussing how we measure employee morale, is it needed, and are there other ways to do it.
Therefore, I am posting this to get insight from the rest of you as to how you feel and what things you do to get your most accurate morale readings or data.
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02/01/2012 03:14 PM
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It is very important when changes are being made but it is difficult to measure, however following could be some indications:
- Number of people participating in Lean events.
- Number of suggestions (process improvement related).
- Employee survey.
- Turnover rate or retention rate.
- Feed back and Gamba walk.
I hope it will help you.
Regards,
Jamal
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02/03/2012 10:27 AM
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Check out the "Great Place to Work" survey. It measures dimensions such as communication and trust and provide you the leading indicators of morale that you can take action on proactively.
http://www.greatplacetowork.co...ess-your-organization
The US Army also has some good assessment tools such as the "Command Climate Survey" which are not as detailed as the Great Place to Work survey but can be used without outside consultants. The command climate survey trys to see if EEO, sexual haressment, and discrimination issues are being prevented and dealt with where the Great PLace To Work survey does a much better job with questions about trust, respect, and loyalty. Because it is designed for use in the military, the survey may need some translation into civilianese.
http://www.hqda.army.mil/ari/s...s/commandclimate.shtml
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02/19/2012 07:50 PM
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Hi John,
There is a book called '12 - the Elements of Great Managing' written by the Gallup organization. They found that over the many years they had literally hundreds of millions of survey responses along the 'what makes this a good place to work' questioning line, and came up with 12 factors to what makes a place a good place to work. There is a follow up book that is more popular called 'First Break All The Rules' which turns these properties into questions to ask to determine the long term success of your people. I'd like boil it down to 'do you have what you need' and 'does any one care" but its not quite that simple. The order and exact language are said to be important.
I do not reproduce the questions here as they are copyrighted. but feel free to buy, borrow or otherwise check it out. It is the best I have seen along the 'moral survey' line of inquiry.
Dan
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02/21/2012 03:44 PM
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You can find the 12 points HEREhere
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05/07/2012 10:56 AM
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Hi John
In my opinion the three best measures of employee morale are your turnover rate, happy employees do not leave easily; two number of suggestions, happy employees want to help more; and three percent of employees making suggestions, if only a small percent make suggestions that should tell you that there are a lot of employees that do not care. These are simple metrics, but they provide you with an easy honest measure
That being said, I feel the best way to see what employee morale is like, is by walking the gemba. If employees are actively interacting with their supervisors and support staff, than you have good morale. If the managers, supervisors, and support staff have to go to them to get information there is something wrong. Within in minutes of walking into most plants, I can tell with ease just how high their morale is by just watching how production staff react with the supporting staff. On a recent plant tour I say a company with high morale, just about every employee reacted positively to the engineering and quality people that where leading the tour. No one hasted to bring something to these people attention. The respect between the workers and the support staff was easy to see and without mutual respect morale does not exist.
Another good way to see morale is by just watching how people come and go from work. Do they act happy, and energized, or are they dragging themselves to and from the door. I clearly remember time at one plant where the plant management considered they had great morale, yet the people came and went acting like beaten dogs, any outsider with even the slightest power of observation could tell you that the real case was that morale in the plant was very low. Human beings cannot help but telegraph how they feel through their body language. learning to watch that will tell you far more than any survey, most surveys are subject to biases both in their design, and in their execution. Subjects easily determine what the expected answer should be and will give it to avoid having negative reactions occur.
Remember Lean is about actually seeing what is happening, not about trying to create more numbers to track and study.
Live Lean and Prosper
Robert Drescher
ELSE Inc.
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05/07/2012 12:00 PM
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John, if you want to get snowed in with information on how to measure morale, do a Google search on "Measuring Morale." You'll find about 94,100 references.
Sam Tomas
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05/09/2012 02:07 PM
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John,
One thing I have done in a former life is to look at the managers processes and apply lean principles here, by doing this I treat the employee as the customer and understand what they want from the manager/organisation by doing this I had something to measure. I do to have any visuals of this now however I am more than happy to offer further support if required
Cheers
Lee
www.leansecrets.co.uk
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05/14/2012 03:01 PM
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Nothing beats walking the Gemba for understanding.
Nonetheless, metrics have an important place. The question i like to ask in an on-line survey is: "Over the past 12 months, have things improved at our company." (Typically score it from 1-5: Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree). I also like to ask " Do we have a Culture of Collaboration?"
I suggest you don't wait until a mega survey once per year. Here, consider borrowing a page from SPC and rely on sampling. For example: randomly divide the the workforce into 4 sections
Survey one section each quarter (i.e. each person gets surveyed once per year). That way you have fresh information and you can act promptly as you need to.
- Kurt
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07/16/2012 10:10 AM
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Robert
I agree with your post on how to measure morale and that is supported by decades of experience in both companies that do not have good morale and the few that do.
You point out the tunover rate and number of suggestions and walking on the shop floor to watch the interaction between employees and employees and their supervisors. Attendance is another measure. Do people want to go to work and not miss because it is easy and has no affect on others?
I have worked for and with companies that take surverys and then do nothing. Working for Toyota thesurvey follow up was typically timely and thorough. Managers were responsible to take corrective action for any items under their control. Implementation progress was monitored.
Ron Turkett
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07/20/2012 10:13 AM
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Hi All,
I worked for a company where the determination to take action as a result of morale related feedback could only be described as patchy. The corporate feedback process lacked specificity and took place annually. There was little local ownership of the outcomes. One of the best responses I have seen involved more regular gathering of more specific feedback and then a resulting focus on Visible Leadership and Coaching.
Has anyone else experiences of responses that can make a difference?
Thanks for starting this thread and regards all,
Robin
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