Ask staff what they think - and watch performance rise

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Over the past two weeks, KenexaJRA has hosted information sessions in Auckland and Wellington to launch the Kenexa Best Workplaces Survey for 2012. KenexaJRA spoke about the importance of regularly surveying employees to aid in addressing workplace issues.

It presented findings from its analysis of the 230+ New Zealand organisations that took part in the Best Workplaces Survey 2011. Organisations indicated that growth and performance improvement, and retaining and attracting key talent were the top challenges they expected for 2012.

Jessica Xu, a senior consultant in charge of research at KenexaJRA, discussed how using the results of an employee engagement survey can help organisations wishing to find out what they need to do more or better to attract and retain their key talent.

She also noted that organisations should use survey results as "lead indicators to predict and drive organisational outcomes such as customer satisfaction and business performance".

An employee survey should not just be an exercise of ticking a box, but a real investment into maintaining a high-performance workplace.

Xu presented global Kenexa research showing the potential of an engaged workforce is amplified when they are also placed in a culture towards "performance excellence" - strong orientation towards customers/stakeholders, focus on quality of services or products, high expectations of performance standards and a strong value of continuous improvement.

When organisations emphasise the importance of high performance to their employees and support employees in achieving this (for example, through training and development) they are on a path to creating a culture of high performance and driving positive changes in overall business performance.

Xu highlighted the importance of "aligning your survey with your organisation's business strategy" as this tends to result in "more buy-in from the business and has the greatest return on investment".

The survey should be part of a continual improvement process. If people see it as an effective tool in the organisation's overall strategy to build a great workplace, they are more likely to respond to the survey and support initiatives resulting from it.

To conclude both events Xu summarised features of the Kenexa Best Workplaces Survey for 2012: "We want to help organisations drive high performance. Our survey asks about employee engagement, focuses on 'performance excellence' and measures accountability and organisational behaviour change to gauge survey driven momentum."

The Kenexa Best Workplaces Survey is run in association with the New Zealand Herald and supported by KiwiBank and the Department of Labour. The survey is available until August 31. Register online: http://www.jra.co.nz/bestworkplaces/