Dave Braun
00:00:03
Hello, my friends. Welcome to the HireMyVA Team and Business Building Podcast brought to you by Yoogozi.com. In this podcast and at HireMyVA, we help you to reclaim your freedom through hiring and thriving with virtual assistants without breaking the bank – and that means your bank. I’m Dave Braun, and as usual, I’m here with my friend, Larry Broughton. He’s a great mentor. He’s a buddy traveling through life with me. Not to mention, someone who’s coached — I don’t even — the number is staggering, thousands and thousands of entrepreneurs to become successful. Right? And so many ways, you know, and Larry, part of success is not just in business, but in lives. And I know you talk about wanting to get people, not just looking at success, but significance as well.
Larry Broughton
00:00:54
Yeah. Well, hello handsome Dave. Don’t worry, my friend —
Dave Braun
00:00:58
I’m doing well.
Larry Broughton
00:00:59
Good. We do need to do that count one day, about how many people have been through our programs and that we’ve mentored. I know it’s been several hundred doing one on one coaches. But in the mastermind where we have a dozen or 15 people at the same time, you know, it adds up pretty quickly. We’ve done a lot of —
Dave Braun
00:01:17
Mastermind jam sessions?
Larry Broughton
00:01:19
Yes. Oh my gosh. We’ve done a lot of it, right? But boy it’s a lot of fun. But thank you Dave for being my friend and my mentor—
Dave Braun
00:01:27
Yeah of course.
Larry Broughton
00:01:29
My partner and everything else. So let’s kinda dive into this. What’s that question this week?
Dave Braun
00:01:36
All right. So the question is — this is episode 102. The question is, what is the importance of an employee satisfaction survey?
Larry Broughton
00:01:49
Oh, no, that’s good.
Dave Braun
00:01:50
Yeah.
Larry Broughton
00:01:51
We call them — people call ’em different things, but we call them confidential work climate surveys.
Dave Braun
00:01:57
Yeah.
Larry Broughton
00:01:59
And the reason we put that in there, the emphasis on the confidential part, they want people to know that they’re feedback that we’re asking them for is confidential. That it’s not gonna be shared with other people and it’s not gonna come back to haunt them.
Dave Braun
00:02:14
That’s right.
Larry Broughton
00:02:15
The first time I really started learning about these things was, believe it or not, in the military where in special forces, we used to do peer reviews during the training.
Dave Braun
00:02:27
Okay. Yeah.
Larry Broughton
00:02:29
And, and I was curious about how did that fit into the overall, you know, feedback loop. You know, oftentimes Dave, we get — we know what performance appraisals are, right? And that’s where a supervisor is reviewing the performance of a ” subordinate”. Someone that’s in their charts, right? But that’s only one-way communication. Right? And then some people do peer reviews where peers will actually do reports on, you know, people that are in their work team. So that’s gonna crosswise, but how do you close that loop? What you’ve gotta ask the people in the organization- How are we doing as managers and leaders, right? So the purpose of conducting these confidential work climate surveys is so that we can get the results of — so they can take the results of these surveys so that leaders, managers, owners, can shape the future activities and make informed decisions about the direction of the organization.
Larry Broughton
00:03:31
And it gives the team — we call ’em team members, not employees. Right. I’m just gonna say this, I’ve said it a hundred times, thousands of times in my career. If you treat someone like an employee, they will show up like an employee. You treat them like a team member and they understand that their efforts are part of the overall organization. Right. We’re all in this together. Everyone wants to be on a winning team. Right? And so work climate surveys or work climate studies, or whatever you call ’em, gives the team member the chance to channel all of their opinions through this official tool so it can be easily analyzed. And so that’s kinda the purpose of it and we should probably just do share what is it.
Dave Braun
00:04:23
Yeah. And you know, by the way, folks, this is part one of a two-part episode. The next one, right? The 1 — 0, what are we at? 103 is the next one. I forget you know. So 103 is gonna end up being, you know, our second part. We’re gonna talk about how you implement here and just talking about the purpose. But the purpose is — so the purpose is more important than the how, because if you don’t have the purpose right, the why behind it, you’re gonna get the how wrong. And then, you know, part of the — if you’re gonna do this employee confidential survey or work climate survey, you want to have participation and you wanna make sure you take action. So if you don’t have a good why behind it, both of those things are not gonna happen well.
Larry Broughton
00:05:11
Well, the idea, again if we’re using this to chart the future, what we wanna know is; hey, team member, how are things going? Just generally, this is the general direction. How are things going in the organization? Do you know the mission of the organization? Do you have the proper tools to be effective in your role? Do you trust your leaders? Do you understand what your role is in the organization? The one that we’ve used in our organization for a long time is about 40 — 45 to 50 questions. Right? We go a little bit deeper than a lot of folks. We ask things like if you were offered a job somewhere else, would you take it? That’s an important thing to know, right? Briefly, this is great resignation that’s going on in the country right now. We ask, hey, if you were ill and in the hospital, would your supervisor come visit you? Important, right? If you were in the hospital or if you were—
Dave Braun
00:06:09
Well, given COVID right now, you —
Larry Broughton
00:06:11
Well, but generally, yeah.
Dave Braun
00:06:14
I just — I’m just —
Larry Broughton
00:06:15
But you get the gist, right? If a family member were ill or died, would your team members support you? Do you feel like your team members would support you? Right? What we’re trying to do is like, what is the culture? What’s the climate of the organization?
Dave Braun
00:06:29
Hmm…
Larry Broughton
00:06:29
Right? And so —
Dave Braun
00:06:30
Climate is more important in your culture, is more important than everything, than any — almost anything else right now. Given what’s going on. Right? With the great resignation and people. Just man, just recently the company that I’m very intimately with, the couple, like key members on their team just left and they spent time, so much time and energy recruiting them. Why did they leave? They don’t exactly know yet, which is an important thing. We can talk about in another episode. But you know, if you make your culture as great as possible and understand what people are really thinking through these surveys, you’ll have a lot better chance on keeping folks.
Larry Broughton
00:07:13
Yeah. Let me give some really quick example of one of the questions. Just one, about do you have the tools to do your job effectively?
Dave Braun
00:07:21
Oh yeah. That’s a good one.
Larry Broughton
00:07:23
Oftentimes we harp on our team members, why aren’t you getting this done? Why do this mistake keep getting made? Well, if they’re a graphics person and they don’t have a good suite of graphics software, that could be a problem. Right? In my organization, in the hotel company, we had acquired a hotel several years ago and as we were going through all the best guest comments, the guest surveys that they fill out, it’s always dusty room, dust on top of the picture frames, dust on the ceiling fan. And so when we gave the survey, we found out that really what the room attendants wanted but no one ever got for them, was dust wands.
Dave Braun
00:08:08
Oh,
Larry Broughton
00:08:09
A collapsible wand, and a dust thing on the top, so they could reach up and hit high surfaces. Because not all of our room attendants are mutants like me, who can walk in and see us at eye level. Right? You know, many of them are or five-foot-two or five-four, and they can’t climb up on these things. So if they had a simple dust wand that could help their life — no one ever asked them. And that’s why we said, well, why don’t you have these? Well, we didn’t know that we could have them.
Dave Braun
00:08:37
Crazy.
Larry Broughton
00:08:37
So what they did, they took the beatings every week. Another complaint from a guest, you guys have to get up there and clean these, you know, fans, whatever. Just ask what tools do you need to be more effective?
Dave Braun
00:08:51
Yeah. And that’s great. And that’s one of the — when you talk about the whys, the results of acting on what happens is one of the big whys. I remember the hotels, I remember one time, and I can’t remember — I mean, a lot of times, you know, before — I can’t remember exactly when it was, but a lot of times, you know, we’ll, we have to open up the drawers before we leave the hotel room and all that. Right? And look under the bed—
Larry Broughton
00:09:18
She didn’t leave anything behind. Yeah,
Dave Braun
00:09:19
That’s right. And I’ve done that before. Somebody’s wearing my clothes over in England right now. I left some there. But anyway, I remember looking under the bed one time and there was a little tent card that said cleaned by blink.
Larry Broughton
00:09:34
Right. Remember or something. Yeah.
Dave Braun
00:09:36
Yeah. And I’m sure that came as a, a cool result of, you know, a survey, but like a, maybe not just a survey, but having an open environment where people can contribute there, suggestions for improvements.
Larry Broughton
00:09:50
Well, this is one of the things, this is one of the side benefits, I think Dave, of doing the, the confidential work climate surveys, if you’re a good leader, if you’re a great manager, you publish the results and you give an action plan on what you’re going to do to address the shortcomings. Yes. The worst thing you can do is to do this survey and then you never close the loop for the team members or you never address their issues or their concerns.
Dave Braun
01:10:16
Yeah. We’re gonna talk about that in the next episode. Because I had some of those experiences working in the corporate world. Yeah. And there’s a certain methodology that you’ve gotta make sure you follow to keep going with this and that’s exactly right. If you ignore it, if you don’t give that feedback, the proper importance in your organization, your culture will change and people will not wanna improve. And you’ll do more harm than good.
Larry Broughton
01:10:47
Yeah. Well, think about it this way. It’s like asking your lover, your spouse, your significant other, what can I do to change? How can I be a better spouse and I tell you, and you don’t do anything about it. What’s that gonna do? It’s not gonna go very well. They’re gonna get to the point like, why are you even asking? Why even ask?
Dave Braun
01:11:11
Exactly. It’s demotivating.
Larry Broughton
01:11:14
Right. So stay tuned for the next episode. And we’ll, we’ll dive deeper into that. So it’s a cliffhanger one, Dave.
Dave Braun
01:11:20
Yeah. That’s right. So hopefully you guys are convinced that it’s an important thing to do and we’re gonna talk the next time about, how do you do it if you have a bigger organization versus having maybe one or two folks in your organization, like a lot of you folks that are listening to us, probably have. You know, that number in your group. How do you do something as equivalent or as best as you can, given those circumstances?
Larry Broughton
01:11:46
Well, Dave, I think the part of the benefits here, why do you do this? Ultimately you wanna attract rockstar team members and you wanna reduce turnover. I mean, we’re in business, okay? We’re not most of these people that are listening, are not nonprofits. And even if you are, there are a lot of elements of the corporate business world that you should be applying to your nonprofit. But when you take what your team members are telling you, you apply it to the organization, if it’s relevant, and if it’s not, you need to make sure and explain why it’s not relevant and thank them for the feedback. But the idea is to ultimately reduce turnover.
Dave Braun
01:12:22
Yes.
Larry Broughton
01:12:23
Turnover is one of the most costly things for your organization. We talked about this briefly in the previous episode and I think — but the cost of a bad hire or losing someone can be anywhere from one and a half times their annual salary or payroll to one survey I saw that was in a document that we published years ago, was 2.3 times more costly for senior executives. So if someone’s making, let’s say a hundred thousand dollars in your organization. It’s gonna cost 2.3 times more than that, so $230,000 to replace that person in the organization. That real money.
Dave Braun
01:13:06
That’s staggering — it’s really staggering. It really is.
Larry Broughton
01:13:09
Yeah. And you think about what’s happening in the country today, where it’s not just one person who’s leaving an organization, several people are leaving. So let’s say you got somebody who’s making — you know, crying out loud if they’re making $20 an hour, which is not unreasonable. They’re making 40 some or 60 something thousand dollars a year. It’s still costing you a hundred thousand dollars a year to replace them.
Dave Braun
01:13:29
Yeah.
Larry Broughton
01:13:30
Or $75,000 a year? Hey, how about let’s ask them what do they need? And let’s fix it. Would that be a better place, a better approach?
Dave Braun
01:13:40
Oh yeah. And you know, and I wanna also emphasize on that cost, that’s the money but time is kind of factored into that. But think about it from your perspective, how much time you have to spend if you are a larger company and you have a board of directors, and if it’s a, like a C-suite type of position. A lot of times the board will help interview people as well. And their time is valuable. So it’s like, oh man, it’s costly.
Larry Broughton
01:14:07
Well, what does not go into that figure is the emotional wear and tear on you and your fellow team members.
Dave Braun
01:14:14
Oh yeah.
Larry Broughton
01:14:15
You can’t measure that, right? So people want stability. You like these sports analogies, Dave. It’s rare that you will lose, which is not uncommon in my industry. You lose 50% of your team in one year.
Dave Braun
01:14:30
Yeah.
Larry Broughton
01:14:31
In restaurants, it’s a hundred percent turnover. It’s very hard to have a winning team when you have such constant turnover. So if we can limit this — but the problem with, I think I see with a lot of folks, and hopefully it’s not folks that are listening to this episode or this podcast is that there are a lot of —people are gonna use air quotes around these terms, manager, leader, and business owner who are, who have an, us against them mentality with their — and I’m gonna use the word intentionally this time, employees, because they treat them like that and so their people show up like that and it’s combative and it’s rude. And they look at their team members as these — I don’t know, they treat them like a commodity.
Dave Braun
01:15:18
Yeah.
Larry Broughton
01:15:19
You know, and they burn through people and you do things because that’s the way I said, and just make it happen is not a long-term recipe for success, I promise you that. And might work for the day. It might work for the week, but it’s not all peer must be for success.
Dave Braun
01:15:37
Yep. And you know, as soon as if you have that kind of a culture, even almost any culture, you know, one person leaves, especially with the culture, like you talked about; one person leaves, everybody else is gonna be thinking, should I leave? Should I start searching out there? It can become a ripple effect and, and cripple you as an organization. We don’t want that, that’s why you’re listening to us. Right? Well, in the next episode, we’re gonna talk about some do’s and don’ts, some how’s on how, how’s on how, whatever. We’re gonna talk about a few how’s on this. So make sure you listen to that. Stay with us because it’s important for you guys to do these surveys. All right? Well, thank you everybody for being part of this podcast and joining us. Remember building a team is the way to reclaim your freedom.
Dave Braun
01:16:38
We’re here to help you with our Course and Community and of course our White Glove Service, where we find a rockstar VA for you. Now, three things we’d love for you to do and we really, really, really appreciate it — Did I say really? I mean really. So subscribe, to the podcast if you haven’t already done so. Whatever phone you’re using, subscribe YouTube, hit the subscribe button, and click on the little bell next to it to get reminders of new episodes coming out. And then number two, give us a rating. Preferably, of course, five-star. That’s what we want, but whatever you feel like you want us to do, what you want to do. That would be fine. Leave a comment below this video. Anything will help us get the word out. And then, of course, number three, go to Hiremyva.com for more information on our course and community, and of course our White Glove Service. And remember though, even without experience, you’ll learn how to prepare for hire and thrive with virtual assistants. Larry and I have helped a lot of folks over the years and we’re continuing to help folks. We’re getting more people into our community and we’d really love you guys to join us and to get freedom in your life. So just go to Hiremyva.com for more information.
Larry Broughton
01:17:46
Yeah. And go to Yoogozi.com, y-o-o-g-o-z-i, and it’s really our online platform of by-size nuggets for entrepreneurs, leaders and, and high achievers. And if you’ve got questions about this topic or any other topic, go to our community or leave a comment here. Ask us a question. This is what Dave and I do. We love doing this stuff, and your questions help us get sharper and become better. You know, as I say, iron sharpens iron, and I wanna be around people who are rockstars and who are smart and thinking — that helps me. But as entrepreneurs, as leaders, we’ve got a moral obligation to do great things with our businesses. We can’t do it alone. Lean on those folks that are around you. But now, I’ll leave you with this; God bless you, God keep you, God hold you. All right my friends, go do something significant today. Go get them. Bye!
