Employee Engagement
Employee Engagement
THE CLIMATE AND CULTURE STATUS STUDY (CCSS) IS DIFFERENT
Take the time to read this entire website. It may be the most important thing you will ever read on the internet about your organization.
The CCSS is not your grandfather’s survey, it’s actually an internal study of the workings of your organization. It is not like other surveys on the internet today that only look at production results or customer satisfaction. The CCSS is a time-proven internal-based study that provides a clear microscopic picture or mosaic of the climate and culture of an organization at any given time. The CCSS is the basis for effective managment consulting.
In other words, it tells it like it is. It tells you what climate and culture exists, why it exists, and some things you can consider to make it better.
THE CCSS AND YOU
“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” is a common, but not very positive or useful attitdue. Even things that are working can usually be improved. Experience shows that many times, even long-time leaders of an organization might not be fully aware of how the employees or team-member s of their organization perceive the inner workings of their own organization. Consider the “climate” as being what happens in and organization and the “culture” the reason it happens. The CCSS looks at the organization’s behavior of team-members at all levels in an organization.
Have you heard the saying: “You can’t see the forest for the trees?” That’s where the CCSS (Climate and Culture Status Study) comes in. The CCSS conveniently and quickly spotlights the strengths and weaknesses of the climate and culture of any organization. It provides leadership with a clear roadmap of where improvements need to take place to improve the morale, motivation, efficiency and effectiveness of the organization. It has been beneficial to small as well as billion dollar companies alike. When it comes to climate and culture, organizational size doesn’t matter.
TECHNICAL BACKGROUND
The CCSS is based on universally proven management and statistical evaluation theory. The CCSS reflects the reactions to the style and functions of the leadership. It gives guidance for planning, repositioning and policy changes. It is widely accepted management concept that the leaders of an organization bear the responsibility for the efficiency and effectiveness of that organization. With that in mind, it is easy to understand that the internal policy decisions they make should be based on what the team-member s of the organization perceived as truth.
When administered under the right circumstances and for the right reasons, the CCSS is a powerful tool for gauging the expectations and feelings of the employees at all levels, and for discovering an organization’s strengths and weaknesses.
Real life experience shows that even the best technology in the world doesn’t work if the people using it are not proficient and productive. In other words humanistic considerations are extremely important. The people in an organization can make or break any particular organization.
While not all people behave the same way in a given situation, all people do have the same humanistic basic needs. However, extensive research shows that on the average, how they expect the organization to meet those needs tends to be the same. People also usually tend to react similarly to the positive or negative actions of others in the organization. Those reactions directly contribute to the climate and culture. Positive employee or team-member relationships are crucial to an organization’s overall well being.
Experience shows that team-members expect the universal attributes of their leaders and company relationships. The range of questions in the CCSS is designed to point to the strengths and weakness in the organizational behavior of the organization in regards to all of these areas of concern.
The CCSS does not include any consideration of the financial aspects of the organization, and is not a competency test. Allowing the team-members to participate in the CCSS shows a leadership commitment to excellence, and gives them an opportunity to be heard and to support the effort to improve the climate and culture of the organization.
Team-member participation in this study is totally anonymous.
ABOUT THE CCSS
The CCSS is an electronic, Excel based, study containing 160 questions pertaining to the inner workings of an organization. The questions reflect many years of real-life change management responsibility and experience in a wide range of industries including: container manufacturing, retail product sales and distribution, asphalt product manufacturing, steel fabrication, bulk product manufacturing, national food distribution, and food service. The questions also conform to the normally accepted academic theories of management.
The beginning section of the study asks for general information concerning the participant’s background. The main body of the study is divided into the fallowing eight different basic constructs of organizational behavior containing 20 questions each.
Electronic Study/Construct One -- Morale and Motivation
The statements concerning morale and motivation essentially relate to the management functions of (a) directing and (b) controlling. The scores on these statements describe how the workers react to the style of management and the level of interest they feel that management shows for the workers’ personal well being. Statements in this grouping also address the employees’ perception of how much the organization values the employees. Mutual trust and loyalty generally form the basis of good personal relationships. In the main, these statements tell the story of how management and the employees connect with each other on an individual basis. Managers receiving very low scores in this area can examine their own management style more closely. Managers scoring high may wish to continue in the same manner.
Electronic Study/ Construct Two -- Training and Evaluation
This grouping covers factors involving both (a) organizing and (b) staffing. The essence of this classification of statements centers on the process of Empowerment. In the realm of staffing, this cluster of statements scrutinizes how the employees feel about the hiring process and inventory of skills and knowledge in the organization. The statements about training and the employee evaluation system illustrate how the workers feel about how the company controls the employees. Looking at the individual statements may lead to an understanding that the in-house training programs are less than desirable, or that the employees are not very capable. The scores may show that the employees feel that the hiring policies are flawed and or that the evaluation system is unfair and meaningless to them personally.
Electronic Study/Construct Three -- Human Relations
The statements regarding human relations transmit the employees’ thoughts about activities primarily under the functions of (a) organizing, (b) staffing, (c) directing and (d) control. The key statements to review in this grouping involve: (a) trust, (b) loyalty, (c) honesty and (d) ethics. Low scores on trust and loyalty can help explain low scores on morale and motivation. Mistrust translates into poor leadership. Dishonesty leads to poor control of resources. Lack of trust between employees creates poor communication. All of these attributes of organizational behavior connect directly to human relations.
Electronic Study/Construct Four -- Communication
The Communication statements connect with all five management functions: (a) planning, (b) organizing, (c) staffing, (c) directing and (e) control. Proper communication between line-workers and management is essential for effective business operations. The individual statements contained in this grouping will illuminate the pathway to understanding where miscommunication may be occurring. The statements cover areas such as, (a) trust, (b) openness, (c) feedback and (d) accuracy. Problems can exist in the dialogue between higher-management and lower-management, or between mid-management and the line workers. Poor communications can exist among the line workers. Managers using the CCSS are encouraged to examine the scores in the communication grouping closely. It is an important grouping.
Electronic Study/Construct Five -- Resources
The statements in the resources grouping involve the manner in which the organization uses its resources to support the employees. These statements describe responsibilities routinely found under the functions of: (a) planning, (b) organizing and (c) control. The organization’s financial ability to provide resources is outside of the realm of this study. Although this study does not concern financial management in general, this grouping of statements does address the amount of financial resources the organization commits to securing and maintaining its physical resources. In addition to the statements questioning the adequacy of the financial assets devoted to the physical resources, the statements in this group probe the human aspects of the proper use and maintenance of the equipment and facilities. Information gathered within these statements will also give a hint to management regarding the employees’ ideas regarding the adequacy of technology and the organization’s inventory of knowledge of how it uses and maintains these resources.
Electronic Study/Construct Six -- Problem Solving
The Problem Solving statements, as with the Communication statements are associated with all five of the functions of management. This grouping of statements looks at problem solving from the standpoints of how management values input from the line workers and mid-management. It examines the overall company policies and procedures involving planning and problem solving. The scores awarded for the organization’s ability to plan and avoid problems deal directly with the function of planning. Scores on statements about teamwork and individual behavior of the line-workers and managers relate to (a) organizing, (b) staffing, (c) directing, and (d) control. For a complete picture of the perceptions expressed in the problem solving scores, examine the statements concerning the acceptance and use of input from line-workers and managers in relation to the statements in a) the communication and b) the human relations groupings. b) Statements questioning teamwork, training, and cooperation among employees relate to the groupings for (a) morale and motivation, (b) training and evaluation, (c) resources, and (d) management stress.
Electronic Study/Construct Seven -- Management Stress
The statements under the category of management stress primarily speak to the functions of (a) planning, (b) directing and (c) control. The basic considerations of normal organizational activities leading to stress on the job include: (a) personal safety issues, (b) psychological and physical demands of the actual work, (c) training, (d) resources, (e) the intellectual challenge of the work and (f) the degree of unity or confusion involving the source of instructions. Once again, compare the scores awarded to any individual statement in this grouping to the scores on other statements that touch on similar contextual aspects in the other groupings. Poor scores on statements under communication, (a) morale and motivation, (b) training and evaluation, (c) resources, (d) problem solving, and (e) equality and diversity all directly or indirectly connect to high levels of management stress.
Electronic Study/Construct Eight -- Equality and Diversity
The final grouping of statements, under equality and diversity, are under the functions of (a) staffing, (b) directing and (c) control. The first ten policy and procedures statements reflect the employees’ opinions of the organization’s commitment to and operational insurance of equality and diversity. Discovering the employees’ perception of the manner in which the organization actually follows its mission and goals relating to fairness and unification, provides an insight to the commitment to the goals at various levels of the organization. Top management might truly be committed to equality and diversity, yet mid-management could be the source of in-effectiveness in this area. There could also be a problem with bigotry and discrimination at the line-worker level. Once again, there are statements in the other seven groupings that could bear on this area of management responsibility. Specific statements covering trust and loyalty, staffing and training, communication, problem solving, stress and even resources can have a bearing on the conditions of equality and diversity within an organization.
HOW THE CCSS WORKS
All participation in the CCSS is completely confidential, and all participants must be and will be kept anonymous, Persons who know that their feelings will be kept confidential tend to be more willing to be truthful in answering the questions. They will disclose feelings they will not express in person.
A statistically significant number of participants are randomly selected by the CCSS system from a total list of team-members. Participants include line and supervisory persons. Those selected to participate will be sent an individual email from their organization advising them of their selection as participants. The email will give them instructions for completing the study and for maintaining their anonymity. Each participant will use the organizations main computer system to insure their anonymity.
The organization will be issued a suitable number of Excel forms sent as email attachments to the organization’s computer. Depending on the number of participants, additional emails containing the attachments will be issued to allow for more persons to take the CCSS at one time. Each participant will complete one of the Excel forms, forward it to the CCSS email address, and then delete the attached form they just completed. That safeguards the anonymity of the participant. When the attachments to that particular email are all gone, that email is of no further use and should be deleted also.
The organization will arrange for and assign the times for each participant to complete the study. It normally takes a participant between 20 and 25 minutes to complete the study. After all of the CCSS forms are completed and returned to the CCSS system, a confidential comprehensive report of the findings will be completed and issued only to the person authorizing the study.
With the proper participant cooperation, the entire study can be completed along with the final report in approximately four to six weeks.
ACCURACY AND VALIDITY
The CCSS study instrument has been proven valid over many years and in many situations. It has been proven to be statistically valid and consistent over a range of different study situations since 1992.
The format and results have been extensively subject to analysis using the following SPSS formulae.
· Demographics and Frequencies for Electronic Study
· ANOVA to test for significance between demographics and scoring
· Internal Reliability using Cronbach’s Alpha
· General Descriptives
· One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test assuming a normal distribution
· T-test for equality
· Levene’s test for equality of variances
· Factor Analysis
The statistical results indicated that there is a strong relationship between all of the eight major groupings of questions. Within the eight (8) groupings of twenty (20) statements each, there is also a strong correlation between the twenty (20) individual questions. In essence, the entire questionnaire is highly correlated.
THE CONFIDENTIAL STATUS REPORT
The final confidential Status Report contains the aggregate results of each of the constructs of the study along with comments on the strengths and weaknesses found through the study. It will point out groupings of high and low scores in each of the eight constructs and the possible meaning for the leadership. A composite Excel worksheet containing the aggregate scores of all participants for each question will be included in the confidential report.
The final report will be issued confidentially only to the person who authorized the study. The participants and results will remain confidential and anonymous. The report will be issued within 15 working days from the completion of the study by all participants.
WHAT’S NEXT?
To set up a personal confidential discussion of the CCSS process, please contact us and give us your: Name - Daytime Phone number - Email Address – and Best Time to Call at the following email address.
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