If it takes until the annual employee satisfaction survey comes out to realize that you have a problem, “listening” to employee ideas probably won’t help much.
Some possibilities here:
- Your organization doesn’t have enough trust for everyone having a problem to be able to communicate that problem to the next level and have each level of management propagate that knowledge OR address it.
- You don’t have enough contact with your employees to recognize there is a problem yourself. If you see one person forcing a smile at every team gathering–that’s a Grumpy Coworker. If you see a whole team doing it, that’s a Problem.
- Your employees are getting paid by your competitors to say they’re disgruntled.
One of the above possibilities does not belong with the others.