Measuring employee relations

In previous chapters of Measure What Matters, Katie Paine has focused on measuring relationships between businesses and their customers, stakeholders and the communities in which they interact. In Chapter 10, Katie Paine addresses measuring employee morale. Positive employee sentiment is crucial to business success because employees are the backbone and the face of any organization. Happy employees tend to be more productive and committed to their organizations. If employees are happy with their place of work, they are more likely to advocate for the business and recommend the organization as a great place to work. 

As an employee (for more than one organization) I've experienced both constructive internal communications and a lack of internal communications. I know firsthand how frustrating it is to feel out of the workplace loop. There have been times when I received critical information from sources outside of our organization; this lead to confusion and irritation toward my superiors. On the other hand, I have worked for an organization with effective internal communications, weekly checkups and one specific and exclusive channel for coworker communication. The presence (or lack) of effective internal communication practices within my workplaces do in fact influence how I feel about working for the organizations.

Paine notes multiple ways to measure the strength of employee relations, such as monitoring local media, social media, internal blogs and online communities, conducting focus groups, studying intranet log files and distributing surveys. If the organizations I work for have conducted any of these measurement tactics, I have not been aware. If given the opportunity, I would surely participate in an employee focus group or survey in order to share my thoughts and hopefully improve the internal communications within my workplaces. 

For businesses measuring employee relationships, Paine says it's important to remember that employees will expect internal communication practices to change. It's important to post your data and findings where all employees can have access to comment and provide interpretation feedback as soon as possible. This type of two-way communication will ensure future participation in employee research, while improving employee sentiment at the same time.