How good are we at assessing how satisfied people are with their managers? In many situations appraisals are something of a whitewash that throws up little about hierarchical relationships. One tool that can prove to be useful is a form of employee engagement research that seeks to find anonymously what employees feel about their employer.

Sometimes it’s a brave organisation that takes on a project of this nature – they have a habit of throwing up facts that some managers would rather not face up to. How many of us know hand on heart how the management team are perceived by those beneath them in the hierarchy? And if we don’t know, whose fault is that? I think it is always worth an HR team looking at what goes on under the surface. Not all the feedback we get from our management colleagues is accurate, whether by accident or design, so why not commit ourselves to walking the floor once a week – it’s amazing what you can pick up.

So before we put too much effort into considering how our organisations look from the outside, let’s check out the insides – there may be some nasty surprises lurking about!

Did your organisation enter the Top 100 businesses to work for competition? If so, what did you learn from it? Has it changed the way you do things at all? If you failed to get into the top 100 list did this create any form of disillusionment within the HR team? Let us know how you have got on with the process.

Quentin Colborn is an independent consultant who helps organisations determine and develop their HR strategy. To contact him T: 01376 571360 or e-mail him at Quentin@qcpeople.co.uk

Colborn’s Corner: series articles

• Just administrators?




• What’s the point of HR?




• Who’s a big bully?




• Who remembers final salary pension schemes?




• Should HR make New Year resolutions?




• The HR year in review




• Who can you trust these days?




• How am I doing?




• Who cares?




• Is it worth rocking the boat?




• The truth about work/life balance




• Benefits – your flexible friend?




• Who remembers industrial relations?




• HR Zone stirs up porn probe




• Compensation culture or fair treatment?




• Mind your Ps and Qs




• Assessment Centres – are they worth it?




• What’s in a name?




• Disciplinary dilemmas divulged




• Employee engagement – realism or wishful thinking?




• Internal communication – who told you about that?




• Is there a place for ethics in HR?




• Employment Law in 2005 – a case of over-regulation?




• Pensions – whose crisis is it?




• The 2005 Election – what does it mean for HR?