Employees want better communication

Employers across Ireland got a shock today when the results of a survey carried out by Weber Shandwick’s sister company, Inside Edge were published.

Insidedge conducted 602 online interviews with employees across ROI and NI in February. These results are part Insidedge’s ongoing commitment to researching and understanding the dynamics of employee trust in Ireland, the UK and USA.

Those interviewed included employees of large, medium and small companies, of indigenous and international parentage as well as government employees. The range of interviewees was drawn from senior management to front line staff.

The findings will be a little startling to many business leaders on this island.

Employee trust in their senior management is alarmingly low with one in every three employees in both Northern Ireland and the Republic recording active distrust or low trust in their employers according to new survey results released today by Insidedge, the global employee engagement specialists.

The survey also revealed that employees rank trust and open, honest internal communications as major contributors to their job satisfaction, organisational commitment and decisions whether to stay with or leave their employers. In Northern Ireland 38 percent and in RoI 32 percent of those surveyed expected to leave their current employment in the foreseeable future, while an overwhelming 74 percent of all Northern Ireland and 80 percent of RoI interviewees indicated that an improvement in communications would positively influence them to remain with their employers.

Keith Burton who leads Inside Edge globally thinks these results pose significant issues for local businesses and government bodies about the way they communicate with their employees–especially when measured against the millions in cash which staff replacement, absenteeism and low productivity due to employee lack of commitment cost individual companies and the economy here every year.

“In our survey, we polled some 400 employees in ROI and over 200 employees in Northern Ireland across a wide range of the manufacturing, service and government sectors. The results clearly indicate the driving impact which effective employee engagement-or lack of it – has on an organisation’s competitive advantage and success in the marketplace as well as on overall economic growth and stability.” Keith is a regular contributor to business  magazines in the US and recently wrote an interesting article for The Journal on internal branding which is worth a read.

Inside Edge is being headed up in Ireland by Brenda Boal who told me the survey reinforces the importance which employee place on trust and effective communication in the workplace. The results are particularly significant, given the unprecedented scope and scale of the structural and operational changes faced by companies and government both in Northern Ireland and the Republic.