The economy is in its worst shape in over 60 years. At this difficult time, does your company have the energy and drive it needs to compete successfully? When the economy starts to improve, will your company have what it takes to thrive?...more

One of the most effective ways for organizations to achieve and sustain a competitive edge is by building a high-performance workforce. This is easier said than done. The best performing employees can usually choose the company they work for. In order to attract, hire and retain top people, a company needs to be an "employer of choice", with an earned reputation for being a great place to work...more

After a decade of reengineering and downsizing, most businesses are still inefficient. One of the most effective ways to increase business performance and profit is to increase the performance of employees, from the lowest levels of the organization to senior management, and little has been done in this area. Raising the level of performance of the weakest performers in each job category can have a dramatic impact on the profit of any company. While many companies are focusing on technology and strategic solutions to expand profit margins, opportunities to increase staff performance are frequently overlooked.

People are the most important asset of any organization. Fielding a winning team is critical to the ability of any company to compete effectively and to thrive, and top performing people are the foundation of winning teams. Closing the gap between the top and bottom performers (people performance gap©) can provide breakthrough increases in profit at most companies, even if their profit is already at all-time high levels...more

When responding to employee satisfaction surveys and employee engagement surveys, employees sometimes describe their managers as "difficult to work for". Employee comments typically refer to these hard-to-work-for managers as "difficult managers / supervisors", "the boss from Hell" or "bully". Survey results that identify difficult managers should be looked at as an indication that there may be a problem with the effectiveness of the manager, especially when two or more employees in the same organizational unit describe their manager as difficult to work for...more

Employee satisfaction is a key driver of employee engagement, and employee engagement in turn is a key driver of customer satisfaction and loyalty, employee retention, productivity, sales, overall organizational performance and profit.

Employee satisfaction surveys and employee engagement surveys are the best way to accurately learn about what your employees are experiencing, thinking and feeling. These are the experiential and psychological factors that strongly influence employee behavior, and employee behavior can result in low or high levels of customer satisfaction, employee and customer retention, productivity, product and service quality, competitiveness, profit and growth...more

The recession has driven profit at most large, mid-sized and small companies well below peak levels. Companies that have had success in boosting profit have done so by making significant reductions in staff levels. Few companies have been able to generate significantly more sales. Productivity is up on a national level and many employees are working harder, producing more output in the hours they are working.

Many companies have reduced average work hours of the employees they have not laid off, and some companies have reduced compensation and benefits...more

The more you know about how your customers feel about your company, your products and services, your marketing, your sales and service delivery, and every other aspect of your company's offerings, the more you will know about the changes you need to make to compete successfully going forward.

Customer satisfaction surveys are a very cost-effective way to identify what businesses need to do to execute changes and achieve breakthrough increases in customer satisfaction, customer engagement and loyalty, generating increases in sales and profit...more

One of the best ways for companies in any industry to compete effectively, to increase customer satisfaction and earn customer loyalty is to provide outstanding quality products and services that are supported with exceptional customer service. In the everyday fog of running a company, it is easy to lose sight of the need to provide quality and customer service excellence on a consistent basis...more

This article describes how IT customer satisfaction surveys, when conducted effectively and action is taken based on survey results, provide a powerful solution for increasing IT customer satisfaction and IT performance in a tight budget environment...more

This article is about the visible and hidden costs of ineffective IT Support and IT Customer Service, including how IT managers can assess customer satisfaction, and the impact of ineffective customer support. The article also presents some of the negative comments received in an IT Customer Satisfaction Survey, demonstrating the impact of ineffective IT customer support on IT customers.

How effective is your organization's IT customer support, how is it impacting your employees and customers and how do you know?...more

If your company or organization has an in-house or outsourced IT Help Desk, chances are that some of your Help Desk customers are dissatisfied with the service they are receiving. Some of the many possible causes of dissatisfaction with IT Help Desks include:

Is IT (Information Technology) helping to make your organization highly competitive and efficient, or is IT your company's Achilles heel? Unfortunately, at many companies if you ask IT's customers this question, the answer is "IT is our Achilles heel" or "we aren't sure". Most organizations spend a significant amount of money on IT without getting the results customers, employees and the company needs.

Running a highly effective IT organization isn't easy. Tight budgets, fast changing IT requirements, demanding IT customers, competitive business pressure, IT staffing issues and a highly complex hardware, software and network environment are some of the reasons for IT falling short at many companies...more

Surveys are the most effective way to collect customer and employee "Opinion and Perception" information and to slice, dice and view the information.

Surveys measure the pulse of your organization and enable you to connect the dots. Surveys provide the information you need to measure and manage change. When conducted periodically, you can see trends and determine if actions taken are working...more

All important business decisions impact one or more of the following company constituencies:

Balanced scorecard is a measurement system that enables organizations to clarify and translate their vision and strategy into action. Balanced scorecard measurements provide feedback around both internal business processes and external outcomes in order to continuously improve strategic performance and results. When fully implemented throughout an organization, the balanced scorecard transforms strategic planning into the organization's business intelligence center...more

Employee surveys and customer surveys enable businesses to gather important information, perceptions and insight from employees, customers and other groups (e.g. suppliers, shareholders, members, etc.) and then make better, more informed decisions. Surveys are the most effective way to quickly gather anonymous or identified feedback and suggestions from large numbers of people...more

This article summarizes actionable lessons learned from a comprehensive survey examining employee survey practices. The survey was conducted by Quantisoft. It contains lessons learned and actions you can take from 21 organizations ranging from Intel and American Express to Asbury Automotive, Connecticare, Norwalk Hospital, Hubbell Incorporated, New York Life, Citigroup, Atlanticare and Tusculum College...more

This article presents verbatim suggestions and comments gathered in a comprehensive survey about employee survey best practices conducted by Quantisoft. The full survey report includes best practices, key survey findings, lessons learned and actions you can take from 21 organizations ranging from Intel and American Express to Asbury Automotive, Norwalk Hospital, Citigroup, Atlanticare, Connecticare, Hubbell Incorporated, New York Life and Tusculum College...more

This article presents the best way for your city or town to learn from residents about their satisfaction with services and important issues: conducting municipal opinion surveys/municipal satisfaction surveys (community opinion surveys/community satisfaction surveys).

Many cities and towns are run well, some aren't. All cities and towns can be governed more effectively, regardless of how well they may already be governed. A large part of governing cities and towns effectively is to listen to residents and to be responsive to them, taking action where appropriate...more

Towns and cities are under severe budget constraints. While the actual demand for municipal services is increasing, town and city councils, mayors, city managers and other municipal government leaders are under pressure to spend less and cut services. This article describes how conducting a community satisfaction survey can assess the performance of a wide range of municipal services and leaders, and provide information and insight for increasing performance and resident satisfaction, often without the need to increase spending.

How effective are your community's fire, police, EMS, public works and other support services? Are the schools doing a good job? How do residents feel about proposed bond programs to support public works, school and other purposes? How satisfied are residents about living in your city or town? How do you know?...more

By "going green" and becoming environmentally responsible, many companies have significantly reduced costs and increased sales. In the future, as predictions about the availability of energy, water and other natural resources are validated, going green may also enable companies to keep customers and investors happy, maintain market share, become more efficient, avoid legal liability for environmental damage and stay in business...more

Conservation is a great way for individuals and the country overall to reduce energy consumption and save money. You will also be helping to fight global warming and clean up the environment.

Here are 35 things you can do...more