babs

Project team
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Brandl
qualified politologist Bernhard Stelzl

Third-party funding provider
Hans-Böckler-Stiftung (Trust)
Project number: 2014-711-4

The project is all about how the results of employee surveys are handled in companies. Against a backdrop of restructuring, redundancies, ageing employees and securing skilled workers, there was a need to examine the role of the employees' views on the quality of work for the future. On top of that, any vague survey results needed to be clarified.

Inter-company, representative employee surveys repeatedly show a somewhat high level of demand, a clear discrepancy between the desired quality of work and reality, and a low level of job-satisfaction in Germany. At the same time, it indicates that there are only limited differentiated analyses on a company level on how to deal with sources of stress. Employee surveys initiated by the employees themselves, the works councils or staff councils are also used in companies or administrative bodies. In general, however, it is still not clear how those involved deal with the results of the survey, what role the employees play in measures deriving from such surveys and whether the intention of involving employees over and above the surveys has really been established.

The project looked at how labour-policy players handled the results of the surveys as well as the role of the employees in this process. The project strived to answer the following questions:

• What conclusions were drawn from the survey results by management/HR management and by the staff council?
• How appropriate did the employees think the measures were in relation to the problem itself?

The focus was on the (comparative) analysis of the follow-up processes of the surveys on the quality of work, not on the tools used by the employers or the interest groups at work. Follow-up processes from surveys are not clearly defined in theory or in practice. In the end, this can include all activities which have something to do with employee surveys in the workplace.

The project pursued the issues in three public sector organisations, as an example. In these organisations, it was possible to build on existing employee surveys as well as on Good Work surveys initiated by staff councils. As with the public sector in general, these organisations were also marked by redundancies, an ageing workforce and restructuring. The follow-up processes for the surveys were gathered using multi-step qualitative operational case studies. Expert interviews as well as problem-focused interviews with employees were carried out after the preliminary analysis of company documents on the details of the case. Evaluation was then followed by focus group workshops. There were then expert interviews and workshops with the trade union industry group which had accompanied the staff council survey process.

Staff councils were able to reap ideas from their survey to improve the quality of work (Health-Management) and connect modernisation in the workplace with fresh perspectives (new leadership formats, staff growth). Survey results gained independent weight in the negotiations that could not be disregarded by those involved. It was proved that support from outside was crucial in the survey (resources, know-how) process.

It became clear from the interviews that some topics in the surveys had been misinterpreted. Diving deeper into unclear survey results in a systematic way, as for example with the focus groups that were part of the project, proved necessary to embrace problems and be able to put together the appropriate measures. Help from outside was required to expand such opportunities for participation. One issue could, however, arise in that an increased workload could mean a drop in motivation to show commitment to the company. In contrast, a noticeable consequence was the self-improvement that set them apart from others.