Employee research has been a major research growth area in recent years. In the 1960s such research was a fairly rare occurrence; now it is relatively common place in the United Kingdom and becoming more widespread elsewhere. This chapter addresses issues touching qualitative and quantitative research, alternative methods of data collection, census versus sample, location, frequency, incentivisation, possible question issue of particular note in staff research, confidentiality. With internal communication being facilitated by improved IT links such as Intranets and email, the face of staff research looks set to change radically over the next few years.
This paper questions some of the conventional approaches and ways that many manufacturers look at and use customer service research, in particular, Customer Service Monitors: The use of vague 'scales' to measure performance. The way the importance of different aspects of service is measured The way some Customer Service Monitors fail to reflect importance weighting It also looks at how mystery shopping and Customer Service Monitors (CSM's) results combined can be more useful to dealers and how integrated indices using CSM data, mystery' shopping data and internal performance data can provide an overall Customer Service Index which can give a clearer guide to dealers on how they are performing in terms of service delivery.
This paper essentially covers two specific areas: The first half, by virtue of two Case Studies, looks at employee surveys conducted within a Total Quality context. The second looks at findings of staff research making comparisons across different types of company. The initial section of the paper examines why staff research is important and the growth in staff research with the first case study illustrating, in particular, what was done by the commissioning company to implement the recommendations from the staff survey undertaken. The last half of the paper concentrates on a relatively new area, the role of staff research and staff satisfaction as a business health monitoring tool and the variation (or lack of it) in response across different industry types and sectors. Total Quality Management is the focus of this year's ESOMAR Congress. Total Quality Management and Continuous Improvement are providing the philosophy and the framework for many companies globally, and now particularly in Europe, to move forward. Many are looking to it to help them "manage their way out of recession". This paper looks at staff research within the wider context of Total Quality Management research.