ROANOKE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 6, 1990                   TAG: 9005040005
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: D-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE:  By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium


BOSSES RELY AGAIN ON SURVEYS FOR HELP

The Libbey-Owens-Ford Co. wanted to reduce health-care costs.

J.P. Morgan & Co. wanted a thumbs-up on its internal communications.

The Mobil Oil Co. wanted to know why employees were resisting relocation.

Each company chose the same method to reach its goal: an employee survey.

Internal surveys, hugely popular in the behavioral-science-oriented 1970s, were ignored for much of the '80s as companies worried more about bloated payrolls than employee morale.

But slimmed-down companies can ill afford to have disgruntled - and thus, unproductive - employees around.

Nor can they keep pouring money into benefits, the most common survey subject.

Thus, many now hope that surveys will pinpoint ways to keep employees happy without bankrupting the company.

SC Johnson Wax, for example, has made career data available to employees via computer, has assigned managers to counsel them about careers, and has otherwise strengthened its career development program - all in response to an employee survey.

"Surveys are the best way to stay in touch with what your employees think and need," said Gayle P. Kosterman, a vice president of human resources.

Nearly half of the 200 companies surveyed last summer by A. Foster Higgens & Co., a human resources consulting firm in Princeton, N.J., said they use employee surveys.

And 97 percent of chief executives polled by the firm thought surveys would yield useful information.

Surveys are not cheap. Indeed, when thousands of employees are polled on a multitude of subjects, it can cost as much as $400,000.

But not doing a survey can be more expensive still.

Richard Knapp, a principal with Foster Higgens, tells of a hospital that implemented a less costly, but still effective, benefits program - without asking employees for input.

"The employees resented the change so deeply that the hospital had to revert to its old program," Knapp recalled.

In contrast, the Danbury Hospital, in Danbury, Conn., did survey its employees before tinkering with benefits.

Good thing, too: "We thought that, since so many of our employees could be carried on their spouse's insurance, they would be willing to trade medical benefits for other benefits," said Jennifer Moorin, manager of compensation and benefits.

They weren't, and Moorin is now designing another benefits plan.

The Libbey-Owens-Ford Co., the Toledo automotive products company, surveyed retirees as well as employees before changing health benefits.

It discovered that even though retirees account for 60 percent of health-care costs, "they didn't understand the benefits program," said Randall Berg, director of compensation.

Berg's group put together a benefits handbook, and set up wellness programs and group medical practices with locations and hours that the retirees said were acceptable, and that represented cheaper alternatives to conventional medical care.

Result: Last year, when most of industry saw double-digit increases in health care costs, Libbey-Owens's costs were up just 4 percent.

Sometimes, surveys simply confirm what management already knows.

Peter Vanderwicken, J.P. Morgan's senior vice president for corporate communications, recently asked Morgan's employees whether they were satisfied with his internal communications programs.

The employees thought they were fine, but Vanderwicken still thinks the survey was useful.

"You often think you know what your colleagues want, but until you ask them you aren't really sure," he said.

Mobil's corporate instincts also were confirmed by a survey. But in Mobil's case, the confirmation entailed a lot of remedial work.

Derek Harvey, an employee relations manager, said Mobil's top management sensed unrest among employees about its relocation policies and other aspects of its career development program.

Mobil hired a consultant - "The only way to guarantee confidentiality is through a third party," Harvey insists - to survey 2,200 managers, 400 former employees and 100 spouses.

Mobil won't make public the survey results. But Harvey says they prompted the company to revamp policies on child care, relocation and performance appraisal.



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