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Tick the box - pointless surveys

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OK I know surveys get a rough deal and in the spirit of balance, in a few days I'm going to share a positive survey story with you. But for now what I am about to share with you has to be one of the most unimaginative and pointless surveys I’ve ever seen. And it’s real. Yes, real people have this inflicted on them (apart from one question I made up – can you spot it?). This survey was designed by HR (sorry folks it's true) to measure internal customer satisfaction and every department had to send it to every other department and see how they rated. I can’t share the name of the company, I promised my source anonymity. She has since left and I’m not surprised. If this is any indication of how they work – I’d want out too.

OK then, get your pen out and tick these boxes:

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being most satisfied please rate the following:

1 – staff were supportive of your needs

2 – staff responded effectively to your problems

3 – staff were helpful

4 – staff understood your needs

5 – staff delivered what they promised they would do

6 – staff contacted you when they said they would

7 – staff responded promptly when you contacted them

8 – staff advised on matters in an appropriate timescale

9 – overall processing times were reasonable

10 – I want to die – this survey is so painful it makes my eyes bleed and my head hurt

What an utterly disrespectful waste of your colleagues’ time eh? And some folks wonder why surveys have a bad name. Can you do better? Have you been asked a dumber set of questions than this?

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Editor's Welcome

 

Hello! I'm a great believer in the power of stories, whether they be folk tales, novels, films or TV dramas.
 
They have a wonderful ability to get complex moral or social issues over to us in a palatable, easy-to-understand way and can provide many lessons if only we care to look just a little bit below the surface.
 
But they can also act as a fun starting point for discussion and debate on rather more serious topics that are all too often brushed under the carpet and ignored.
 

Hence our decision to start up a Review slot on the site to look at those everyday stories that are all around us from an HR perspective.

Although we've been publishing book reviews (take a look at our Book Club list of suggested possible non-fiction works for evaluation here) for some time, you may also have noticed that we've been running a weekly home page blog on The Apprentice courtesy of The Chemistry Group for a while now.

And Pauline Wood, managing director at specialist retail headhunter, court & spark consulting, was likewise kind enough to write our first film review on the Headhunters movie.

But the big question is, why don't you give it a go yourself? There's a world of choice out there and I, like the rest of the community, would love to hear your thoughts and insights.

So next time you watch a movie, see a TV drama or read a novel that you think has an HR message worth sharing, send your review to me at cath.everett@siftmedia.co.uk or post it directly to our blogs section at www.hrzone.co.uk/blogs.

So get critiquing and look forward to hearing from you very soon.....

Cath Everett
HRZone Editor 
 
 
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