Item 7: "At work, my opinions seem to count."
All employees want to feel that they are making significant contributions in their workplaces. The ways organizations hear and process employees' ideas will shape, to a large degree, whether or not they feel valued for their contributions.
Item 7 is often referred to as employees' "internal stock price." It measures the sense of value that employees feel in their work and toward their organization. The degree to which a company's employees feel their opinions count is readily apparent to its customers. We have all encountered an employee who felt detached or insignificant, and we know the impact that employee's attitude had on us as customers.
If the ideas, instincts and intelligence of a company's employees are its sustained competitive advantage, then employees' responses to Item 7 are of great importance. Nothing is more demoralizing to employees than being excluded from significant decisions -- decisions that affect their jobs. Great managers consult with employees regularly to make sure those close to the action have input into critical decisions. This does not mean that employees have the final say on decisions that affect their jobs. It does mean that when employees' desires and managers' decisions differ, the best managers explain the rationale behind their decisions. These managers use the decision-making process to help employees both to see the full scope of a decision, and to understand why the decision was made the way it was. A straightforward explanation can be a real credibility and communications builder. Great managers never ask employees for their opinions, and then decide to do the opposite, without clearly explaining why.
Great ideas are the building blocks for increased efficiency and new product development. Great places to work, in which employees' opinions count, encourage ideas to flow, and to be heard, processed, and refined. Not all ideas will be successfully implemented, but the process of refining ideas is still wonderfully productive: It builds employees' confidence in the company and reinforces to employees that their efforts can make the company better.