Employee Surveys

     Every year, we take an employee survey. It is not anonymous.  They know who wrote what. We enter a number in the computer so that they can identify us with our responses, not necessarily so that they can help to make our workplace better.  Think back upon how many of your responses have resulted management's action on your issues.

     In discussing his role in selling his services to management, Martin Levitt (page 137-8) discusses an anti-union service that he commonly sold. (bold emphasis ours)

The job of talking a businessman with no noticeable union problem into buying “preventive” services was a bit more challenging, but we consultants did it all the time. For those sales calls we made use of an incomparable tool-the employee attitude survey. With its sheen of cool scientific objectivity, the attitude survey, which later became known as the “opinion” survey, has made believers out of a multitude of timorous business administrators and won a great many clients for employee relations and management consulting firms…

The attitude survey still reigns as one of the premier sales devices of latter-day labor relations consultants, including the host of former Sheridanites and Three M’ers, and their children, and their children’s children. And why not? After all, how could a population conditioned to check the political polls before making up its mind on electoral candidates and social policy questions resist the temptation to find answers to its business problems in the same way? Along with a battery of astounding psychological tests purported to be capable of identifying a proclivity toward theft, union activism, or other “undesirable” behavior, the employee attitude survey is a shameful example of science twisted into service by industry.

     Coincidentally, the EOS surveys took place the same month as the launch of this web site.  This year, we got a shot at a free i-pod for submitting our opinions to the void of unresponsiveness.  One of the reasons why the EOS scores have been improving is that an increasing number of us see the futility in providing candid responses.

     Harrah’s has known exactly what our issues have been all of this time and who has these issues, yet we continue to experience cutbacks.  A chance at winning an i-pod does nothing to address our real issues.  For us, the i-pod is only the "C" of "FOCUS" (Chance to win) and is analogous to the same marketing plan that Harrah's uses on its players.

     Here is an alternative idea for a survey.  We poll our coworkers about what we would like in our Contract, then we do our best to get it included in our Collective Bargaining Agreement.

To Management:
     Based solely upon the surveys, you probably have a good idea of who is involved in this campaign. We see nothing positive resulting from any of the EOS responses that we have provided over the years. Many of us suspect that you don’t care what our responses are, rather who is giving which response.  If you want to view this as simply a wake-up call, we have been giving you wake-up calls for years, but you’ve been hitting the snooze button.  This is our only remaining option.