Using Employee Attitude Surveys to Guide Program Development

    By Katy Ramsey

 

     Assessing employee attitudes is a valuable way for organizations to gain insight into how
employees are feeling about the organization and their work. This can be helpful information
when employers suspect underlying tensions, but understanding attitudes can also be useful
in positive situations. Recently, a group of I/O psychology students partnered with a local
organization to evaluate employee attitudes as part of a new employee development program.
The program for newly promoted managers was designed to clarify the role of a manger and
enhance employee understanding, with the goal of accelerating the transition into management.
Company leaders have recognized the overwhelming nature of this transition and are proactively
taking steps to help employees. Early success of the program will be determined by many
factors, but the initial questions were “Does the training accelerate the transition into a new
role?” and “Have the managers gained clarity?” The students sought to answer these questions
by evaluating general job satisfaction and the degree to which employees were clear of their

     Although additional information is needed after the training course to fully measure its
impact, the surveys produced interesting results that will be useful to the organization as they
strive to enhance employee development and job satisfaction. First, the findings highlighted
specific areas of uncertainty for employees. By comparing this information to the coursework
the new manager program can be fine-tuned to more effectively meet the needs of employees.
Additionally, company leaders were made aware of unknown concerns that could potentially be
harmful to the organization.

     Employee attitudes are powerful predictors of critical organizational outcomes.
Exploring the factors that influence how employees feel, think, and act towards an organization
is the first step in developing appropriate interventions. This organization has taken the first
step by developing a program that demonstrates support for new managers, and hopefully the
information gained from the attitude assessments will shed new light on some of the challenges
managers face and guide the development of future interventions.