We outline the benefits of consulting your staff on how they experience working life using reliable and valid surveys, tailored to your needs. Conducting Risk Reviews allows you to benchmark your performance in human relations, job design, and management using reliable diagnostic tools.

High performance organisations find effective ways of listening and responding to the views and experience of their staff. This is the secret of tapping into the vast reservoir of ongoing commitment and energy that delivers results.

Years of consulting experience has taught us that the kernel of the solution to most business problems is already known to the people who work with the issues on a daily basis. The problem is not that people do not understand the issues or that they lack the means to solve their problems. The challenge is to garner the collective wisdom and remove the barriers to communication.

These are some frequently asked questions of Employee Well-being Surveys (EWS):

• Why should my organisation conduct stress audits using employee well-being surveys?
• How should we choose which survey to use?
• What does EWS measure?
• What does EWS contribute to our leaders and managers?
• Why should my organisation use external consultants to conduct the survey?
• Once we know where our problem areas are, what can we do about them?
• Where do I find out more?
  

Why should my organisation conduct stress audits using employee well-being surveys?

There are many possible reasons relating to good corporate governance and compliance with Health and Safety Executive (HSE) guidelines. There are also issues relating to the need for high-level strategic input to corporate planning.

The most pragmatic reasons relate to improving management effectiveness of the day-to-day running of the organisation. We would suggest a key is; “To equip your managers with information and tools needed to identify and tackle emerging problems and to assist them to create a long-term strategic perspective.”

The knowledge of how people experience the policy and practices of your organisation provides the litmus test of how well your organisation will perform in its sector.

In today’s flatter organisation structures, managers are hard-pressed to cope with meeting current demands. They need additional support in order to adopt their wider strategic role and gain a perspective on shaping the organisation to meet the longer-term objectives. A high quality survey will identify where the problem areas are and point the way to management action that will address the potential threats before they cause serious damage. Our surveys pose specific questions on how well the organisation is performing with regard to issues such as:

• Communicating direction and goals.
• Policy and emerging issues (stress, harassment, bullying and equity).
• Productivity, workload and performance culture.
• Providing appropriate service conditions.
• Supportive training and development opportunities.
• Quality of management and supervision.

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How should we choose which survey to use?

JQA consultants are qualified to design and validate surveys and diagnostic tools. We provide an independent, end-to-end service which starts by understanding your strategy, designing the content, processing data, reports and presentations and implementing solutions. Our confidential online and postal surveys provide the guarantee of anonymity to participants, ensuring high levels of participation and dependable results.

Questionnaires have proliferated and many claim to do the job, but very few have been subjected to proper scientific validation – a time consuming and rigorous process. Ask to see the validation research on the diagnostic tools that you are offered. There must be specific evidence of validation.

You need to answer the following questions:

• What are the credentials of the authors and how much experience do they have in the field of stress management?
• How long has the survey been subject to research and what evidence is there for the reliability and validity of the instrument?
• Has the survey been standardised and are their norms against which you can compare and benchmark your staff responses?

If you are offered a quick and convenient solution, but one that evades straight answers to these questions, you run the risk of basing future management advice and action on doubtful data.

The EWS is the product of ten years research by authors Dr Jake Lyne and Dr Paul Barrett and its psychometric properties compare well to the highest quality instruments. Ask for a copy of our comprehensive research manual by emailing: info@jqassociates.com

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What does the EWS measure?

The Employee Wellbeing Survey measures three factors: Psychological Health, Job Satisfaction and Workload. There is a well established link between these outcome and the quality of Human Resources Management in organisations

Psychological Health is a measure that is sensitive to work and out-of-work pressures. Staff who score low on this measure are likely to report feeling drained, have trouble concentrating and difficulty making decisions. They may feel anxious and unable to cope, whereas staff that score high on this dimension feel equipped to face challenges, are relaxed and confident about the future.

Job Satisfaction measures the extent to which staff perceive the organisational features of their work setting as providing opportunity for personal development and positive engagement with the purpose of the organisation. Such staff members are likely to be happy with their supervision, consider their job prospects to be good, feel part of a team and feel able to use their abilities to the full. Low scores on Job Satisfaction indicate that staff are unhappy in their jobs or the organisation.

Workload is a subjective assessment of work pressure or job demand and includes those elements of work that are perceived to place additional and unwelcome organisational demands on staff. Those scoring high on this scale would consider that too much of their time was spent on paperwork and meetings and may feel that they worked to unrealistic deadlines.

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What does EWS contribute to our leaders and managers?

The Employee Well-being Survey (EWS) is an organisational audit tool that is brief and has easy to understand items. It is suitable for all working groups. This means that response rates of staff to anonymous postal surveys run by JQA is high and clients are able to draw valid conclusions from the reports. The result is a reliable and valid understanding of how staff respond to a range of issues which tell you how well you are achieving your organisational goals.

Our research has shown that knowledge of the three core dimensions (psychological health, job satisfaction and workload) at the group and organisational level the EWS is able to:

• Provide an overview of the well-being of staff.
• Serve as a health check for the organisation to decide whether there are problems of morale or occupational stress that need to be addressed.
• Identify work groups, departments and divisions where there may be problems to do with workload, job satisfaction or psychological health.
• Measure the impact of organisational change programmes and stress management programmes.
• Evaluate Employee Assistance Programmes.
• Provide data to allow benchmarking of individuals or teams relative to organisation or industry norms.

Please contact us to obtain a sample report by emailing info@jqassociates.com
Our reports provide detailed narrative description, supplemented by graphs and technical data for the organisation as a whole and work groups covered by the survey. Recommendations are given for interventions that the organisation can implement to improve the working conditions and well-being of employees.

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Why should my organization use external consultants to conduct the survey?

Our recent experience has, once again, confirmed that independent, qualified external support is needed in order to produce a valid outcome. A client organisation conducted internal research to uncover a suspected bullying problem, but found no evidence. The anonymous survey conducted by JQA pinpointed the problem and we provided and intervention programme to address the culture of bullying in one division.

This supports the common sense understanding that staff place more confidence in external surveys, and will provide candid responses if an independent research group assures them that their responses are confidential and that the findings will be impartial.

After a suitable interval, the EWS survey can be repeated to assess the impact of the interventions implemented after the first survey, and to identify any outstanding issues in the group.

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Once we know where our problem areas are, what can we do about them?

The surveys provide your managers and Human Resources specialists with the knowledge they need to be more effective. Where you require additional support, our consultants have been handpicked and cover all the disciplines required to make adjustments to your organisation design and business processes. Our expertise covers business process engineering, matching people to challenges, training and development, finance and accounting procedures, legal and ethical issues.

We work in partnership with organisations that offer a range of high quality Employee Assistance Programmes throughout the UK. This includes a 24-hour, 365 days per year “Telephone Helpline” and a link to top-level professionals for staff who require counselling and support regarding any kind of personal crisis is offered countrywide.

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Where do I find out more?

Please contact John Queripel at John Queripel Associates Limited for any additional information you might need on stress management in your organisation.
Contact Us.

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