Better ways found to gauge corporate health
COMPANIES that plan to find out what their staff think about the workplace can use advanced methods to diagnose corporate weaknesses and identify areas for improvement, a human resources professional says.
Sara Tang, human resource development manager of the Mass Transit Railway Corporation, said findings from staff opinion surveys - a scientific and objective tool for measuring the organisational climate - could be used to improve various aspects of a company.
Ms Tang said such surveys would enable companies to find out employee concerns and their opinions on issues ranging from role clarity and recognition to teamwork and training.
'Staff opinion surveys are more objective and scientific,' Ms Tang said.
Some large Hong Kong companies had been known to conduct staff opinion surveys, but this was a new tool for small companies in the territory, she said.
Ms Tang is also the vice-president and research director of the 3,000-member Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management.
She said that over the past few years there had been further improvements in the methodologies for conducting staff opinion surveys. Studies have also enabled human resource practitioners to use benchmarking of staff opinion surveys, so that employee responses to particular issues could be analysed and compared with the data of companies that have the best standards in, for example, training, working conditions, or pay in relation to responsibilities.
Ms Tang said: 'In a typical staff opinion survey you will ask whether your employees are happy with pay and benefits. And most of them are likely to say no. So what companies can do is to compare the data with, say, 10 companies and find out whether there are more staff in your company complaining about pay and benefits than the other 10 companies.' Such a comparison could make a company assess whether the perceived pay equity problem is serious or not, she said.
To help Hong Kong companies measure their corporate climate, the HKIHRM had developed a standardised staff opinion survey questionnaire, Ms Tang said.
It includes 13 aspects of an organisation that could be surveyed. The 13 areas are: Company mission; Corporate culture Quality principles and practices; Role clarity; Innovation and change; Communication process Climate; Compensation and benefits; Recognition and rewards; Management style Teamwork and co-operation; Training and development; and Working conditions.
'There is also a 14th dimension that we included, so that a company can add other specific questions,' Ms Tang said.
Following a comprehensive study, the HKIHRM had been able to draw up benchmarks for these 13 aspects, she said.
Data were gathered from seven top companies to define 13 areas. The firms ranged from banking and transport to business services and hotels.
'We sell the staff opinion survey questionnaire to any interested organisation. And if they use the questionnaire we ask them to provide data to us [the Institute of Human Resource Management], so that later we can develop the Hong Kong norm and also the best in class among all the dimensions,' Ms Tang said.
This would help firms to focus on a particular area and make improvements, she said.
