Employees are a crucial asset to your business. A loss of an employee is a loss of institutional knowledge, skills, and money. As an employer, what can you do to increase the retention of your employees and keep them happy?
First and foremost, you have to communicate. Communicating with your employees is something that you should be doing on a regular basis. In doing so, you’ll be able to receive insight into how they feel working for your company.
Questions to Ask Current Employees
Michelle Benjamin, writing for thomasnet.com, recommends that you ask these questions to stay in touch with your employees and gauge the feeling of your workforce.
1. Would you recommend us to others as a good place to work?
Referrals are a great tool for recruiting. Ask your employees if they would recommend working for your company. If they wouldn’t, your leadership team should address this to see what can be changed.
2. If you could change one thing in your current workplace, what would you change?
Your employee’s answers will determine what you need to modify within your company, especially if it’s the same problem across multiple employees.
3. What “makes your day” at work?
The answers to this question from your employees will determine what you need to do more when it comes to valuing your employees and making them feel appreciated.
4. What is your biggest challenge on a typical workday?
Taking their challenges and making them easier on your employees will ensure that they are satisfied with their job, it will also create a more productive workspace.
5. Do you have the training, tools, and knowledge to perform your job?
Having a well-trained, knowledgeable workforce in your company is crucial in today’s day and age. Ensuring your employees are qualified will improve your overall productivity and quality of work.
6. What would make you start looking for employment elsewhere?
Knowing what triggers an employee to start seeking other employment opportunities can help you understand what kind of issues you are having in your organization. In doing so you will be able to minimize the chance an employee would leave.
7. Do you have any talents or experience that you could be using but aren’t in your current day-to-day responsibilities?
Finding those “hidden” talents within your workforce will help you to fill in any gaps you may have in your business. It also will increase the satisfaction of employees who can utilize their skills in different ways.
8. Are you satisfied with your current job?
This is a super helpful question to ask. It will help you improve anything that your employees recommend and it will show you who is “checked out” with their current role and maybe considering employment somewhere else.
9. How could we improve our current reward and recognition program?
Everyone likes to be rewarded, whether it be for something small or something big. Having an understanding of what makes employees feel valued will help you with how you handle your current reward or recognition program and will allow you to make changes as you see fit.
10. Do you see yourself here in the next three, five, or ten years?
This question will help you understand your workforce a little more in terms of stability and employee aspirations. For an answer of ten years, employees usually feel content with their job, company, and longevity.
An answer of three years can raise some red flags, so you will have to address this to see where your company can improve.
How Do You Ask?
With the many ways you can ask your employees, maybe face-to-face is a little too aggressive. Utilizing an anonymous questionnaire or survey would be a good option to get the most honest answers that you can.
Employee satisfaction should be a priority for any business. These are the people that keep your business up and running. Understanding what makes your employees satisfied with help with your retention and will also lower your need to hire more people.
Looking to fill contract, temp or ready to hire positions? Check out our Build Your Workforce page to see how Strom Minnesota can help you find qualified candidates to fill your open positions.
Strom Minnesota is an engineering and technical recruitment agency that specializes in high-skilled job candidates for highly technical positions. We facilitate contract employment, project staffing, temp-to-perm and direct hire opportunities. Industries served include IT, engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and manufacturing. We are affiliated with Strom Engineering, a national staffing and recruitment agency.
