ABB - Personnel satisfaction is connected to profit factors
Text: Ari Rytsy, Images: Tuulikki Holopainen
At ABB Services, personnel surveys are not a passing craze but a long-term strategic choice. Job satisfaction has been measured in the company for nearly 15 years both internally and since the latter part of the 1990s, with the help of Psycon. For the last five years, new more extensive personnel analyses and measurements have been applied to chart the feelings of the employees more accurately than ever.
As ABB Service operates in the service business, its corporate philosophy concentrates on the triangle of financial profit, customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction. Ilkka Tykkyläinen, Senior Vice President of ABB Services believes that monitoring job satisfaction is of equal importance to the company's success as monitoring other indicators. In addition to the management and the HR department, personnel surveys have been found increasingly useful among supervisors.
"We used to distribute the results when they came out. Now the supervisors actively ask after them," says Päivi Leskinen, ABB Service HR Manager.
A similar trend can be observed in the Finnish corporate world in general. What used to be a force-fed routine implemented by the cooperation boards has now become a significant tool for developing operations and HR management.
"These days, if a supervisor is not aware of proper HR management, his or her entire supervision method is open to doubt," says Tykkyläinen.
Job satisfaction predicts the future
Around the central triangle, ABB Service applies seven key indicators. For management purposes, the indicators are considered two at a time. The personnel has accepted clear indicators well, since they allow the leaders of the 80 ABB Service profit centres to operate in a large environment in the manner of independent entrepreneurs. Units carefully track various sections of operations. Job satisfaction has proved to be one of the main factors. According to a survey carried out by Psycon at ABB Service, job satisfaction is clearly connected to future profit figures, customer satisfaction and the number of sick days. In practice, this means that if the indicators relating to personnel give unsatisfactory results, the effect can be later seen in other sectors of the triangle as well. In ABB Service, the importance of this is well understood.
"We have advanced the personnel survey so that the results can be utilised in unit-specific strategies. Adjusting the schedule has also enabled us to minimise the work load caused by the survey," says Leskinen.
The core of the survey is to find out how well the organisation works, which is equal to how employees see their working conditions. At ABB Service, personnel surveys have also had a central role for developing the management practices of supervisors. Along with the new supervisor-specific feedback, work supervisors and the leaders of profit centres get more specific information on their own success in their work.
At ABB Service, personnel satisfaction is monitored using one indicator, the job satisfaction index. According to Leskinen, this hides some information but is nevertheless a clear and efficient way of bringing attention to job satisfaction. From a unit management point of view, the trends of the triangle's main indicators discussed in strategic meetings are more important than the actual result. In such a setting, renewal is important and according to Tykkyläinen, the personnel even expect it.
"Customer expectations cause pressure for reforms, but the personnel creates cohesion for the common goals of the unit."
Cooperation with the customer is heavily emphasised in the ABB Service maintenance targets, where the need for the development of the entire company's operations must be sold to the customer before any real changes are made.
"I must admit that changing the way of operation is difficult in such situations. On the other hand, the parties of customer relationships value each other's expertise. Good results can be achieved through trust. These results can be seen in satisfaction as well as financial profit," says Tykkyläinen.
The satisfaction of the personnel in direct contact to customers is closely related to customer satisfaction, which plays a central role in the competitive environment and for further negotiations.
"When the going gets tough, the importance of customer satisfaction is emphasised. In these situations, the customers can be divided into the happy and the loyal," says Tykkyläinen.
Loyalty strengthens customer satisfaction
"Change always opens doors despite of all the challenges; in changing circumstances, people are open to new ideas," concludes Tykkyläinen.
At ABB Services, development discussions have proven their usefulness as a channel of listening to everyone's opinion. When these discussions are well-timed and correctly carried out, they have shown the way for influencing development targets at the Service level. Recently, one of the major targets for development at the Service level has been strategy and how it is communicated.
The theme is constantly visible for example in the internal bulletin and Intra, which have stories on current themes.
"The theme is discussed from various viewpoints, which is sure to make a deeper and more lasting impression," Tykkyläinen says.
The survey carried out by Psycon shows that
- high job satisfaction is a result of good working conditions; they are therefore worth measuring
- good working conditions have a clear connection to profit factors
- the quality of management strongly predicts sick days and how the employees are able to carry on in their work
- the effects of low personnel survey results show with a delay; therefore, any symptoms must be taken seriously as early as possible.
- Korkea työtyytyväisyys on seuraus hyvistä työskentelyedellytyksistä – niitä kannattaa siis mitata.
- Hyvillä työskentelyedellytyksillä on selkeä yhteys tulostekijöihin.
- Johtamisen laatu ennustaa vahvasti jaksamista ja sairastavuutta.
- Alhaisen henkilöstötyytyväisyyden tulosvaikutukset näkyvät viiveellä – tartu siis oireiluun ajoissa.