Communication Shortfalls are Biggest Worker Complaint

June 12, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - American workers are only getting about 80% of what is important to them in the workplace, with the biggest gap in the area of workplace communication, according to a recent survey.

A press release on the a national study of employee attitudes sponsored by human resources publisher Business & Legal Reports (BLR) and its free e-mail daily newsletter, HR Daily Advisor, said workers surveyed indicated they know what is expected of them and how their jobs fit the big picture, but communication breaks down once it goes beyond the individual department.

With a score of 1.0 indicating a perfect match, respondents gave poor grades to how well change is communicated between departments (.58) and companywide (.64).

In the area of teamwork, the release said surveyed employees assessed themselves as good team players (.98), but felt their organizations do not function well as a team (.68). Individual departments do better working as teams (.82), according to the survey results.

Assessing their employers’ quality and commitment, employees provided mediocre ratings of their organizations’ work practices (.75) and of the fairness of their managers (.80). Study results indicated employees do feel their managers care about them (.87).

Respondents rated their co-workers’ efforts at doing quality work (.81) well below their own commitment to quality (.98), which they indicated is not sufficiently recognized (.76).

In the area of Personal/Career Development many respondents indicated someone at work supports their growth (.80) and that they have had a chance to improve their skills (.80). However, study results showed they are not as satisfied with what employers do officially to help advance their careers (.75).

More than 1,000 companies of all kinds took part in the National Employee Attitude Survey (NEAS), as well as nearly 20,000 workers nationwide. The results so far are from the first 12,154 questionnaires tallied.

The survey was conducted during April and May of this year, with each participating organization receiving a confidential report of its individual results, and how they compare to national averages, at no cost to the participant.

Potential participants can go to http://compensation.blr.com/NEAS to sign up or to get more information.

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