Improving organizational performance using survey-driven databases

Empowering employees to do a good job is made easier when employees respect their co-workers, have opportunities to continuously learn, are fairly evaluated by supervisors, and have fun. Using the example of a Las Vegas casino—hotel, this article describes a four-phase, ten-step process that uses survey data to establish organizational peak performance. Key components of those ten steps include: (1) knowing how employee guest-relations expertise is learned and transferred from department to department and activity to activity, (2) empowering employees to take care of guest needs and encouraging workers to be creative and enthusiastic, (3) training managers to be responsible for employee commitment, teamwork, and communication, (4) using effective performance-feedback tools that invite employees' trust, (5) ensuring that managers understand the demands and importance of front-line jobs and know what resources are needed to perform those jobs, (6) facilitating effective communication at all levels, (7) emphasizing effective teamwork and group problem solving, and (8) ensuring senior managers focus on teamwork, initiative, group problem solving, and organization-wide alignment with corporate goals.