Interviewing entrepreneurs as he traveled around the world, David Niu heard from many who were haunted by the same regret: losing great employees. Regardless of their geography, location or industry, they shared a deep sense of frustration that they hadn't "saved" these valued team members as he met them during his trip in 2012.
These bosses weren't ogres who had been oblivious to what employees felt. "Their hearts were in the right place," says Niu.
But the founders weren't picking up on signals that employees had one foot out the door. "They wanted a pulse on how happy, burned out or frustrated their employees were," he said.
Niu, a serial entrepreneur, decided to do something to help them and, about 20 months ago started TINYPulse. The tech firm enables companies to email very brief, anonymous surveys to take stock of how they are feeling about work that day or get a better sense if what drives them. For instance, one question that Niu asked his own team was: "When you were growing up, what did you dream of being? How does that play into your role today?" Many companies are giving this approach a try. The startup currently has more than 300 paying customers.
Analyzing data the company has gathered has given Niu--who wrote a book about his journey called Careercation--a unique window on what makes an office culture happy. Transparent management, he says, is at the heart of things.
How transparent? It's not about spilling what the guy in the next cubicle earns. In his experience, many firms feel team members don't want to share information on their salary with colleagues.
Employees tend to judge leaders' transparency along the lines of "If I ask a question are they going to be forthright about it--or be evasive?" says Niu.
Of course, there are built-in challenges to trying to survey employees anonymously. In a very small company, it may be easy for leaders to guess who made what comments because they are specific to the respondent's role. Niu recommends that companies keep surveys brief and that leaders ask questions from the heart.
While surveys may not be a perfect instrument, he urges leaders to give them a chance--even if they don't use his technology and opt for a tool like SurveyMonkey.
"One of the reasons surveys are so prolific is they are an easy way to gain a lot of information," says Niu.
And using them beats spending years regretting that you didn't give your star employee a much-deserved promotion--before it was too late.
