By Paul Overmars | Achmea

Measuring employee satisfaction with “Happy or not” column

A terminal with four smileys (two red and two green) to measure satisfaction. I know this so-called “Happy Or Not” column from Schiphol Airport. There, customer satisfaction is measured at the gate. For two months we also put this column in our department at Centraal Beheer. We asked our colleagues, “How is your working day?”. With this we measure employee satisfaction. An ideal tool that generated many positive responses! Both on the working day and about the column itself.

Many positive reactions to this interesting concept

From day one it was printed a lot. After two weeks it had already been printed more than 700 times. On LinkedIn it was also found interesting by many. This also generated many comments , including this one:

“Awesome concept. Also works amazingly uplifting when other people happily print on it :)”

Sharing results and recognizing trends

Other uses of the column

“Happy or not” column in our department.

We had two ideas to use the column in other ways as well:

Deploy it with a different question
Asking for specific feedback at events.

In the end, we didn’t ask a different question. The purpose of the pilot was to ask our own employees’ satisfaction. Using this question and continuing to do so consistently seemed to be the best application for this. Once we did deploy the column at an event. Around our demo we asked what visitors thought of it. The great advantage here was that we could ask for feedback very specifically about that time period and for that activity. The disadvantage of this was that these answers “polluted” the other results because all the input ends up in one bin.

How does the column work technically?

The column does not need to be plugged in because it runs on long-lasting batteries. There is also no need to connect to wifi. This is because the column communicates with a SIM card. As a result, the results are immediately online and become available real-time (every 15 minutes) in the dashboard. The response interval can be set per second.

Conclusions after two months of measuring

Now that the “Happy Or Not” column has disappeared from the department, it is noticeable that it is missed. Apparently, it was routine for some colleagues to press it regularly. Now that the two-month pilot is complete, we can draw these conclusions:

• During the pilot, there was an average of 65 presses per day.
  A total of over 2,600 times were printed.
  The daily record is 142.
  The weekly record is 385.
  Tuesday saw the most printing.
  Friday saw the least printing.
  The day with the most positive response is Friday (96% average!). Followed by Wednesday (93%).
  We are least positive on Thursdays and Tuesdays (85% average).
  Of all votes during the pilot, 67% were very positive (dark green).
  Of all votes during the pilot, 87% were positive (dark green + light green).
• Graph with results: 87% positive!

Where can I order a “Happy Or Not” device?

Would you also like to measure employee or customer satisfaction? Then visit Feedbacksmiley.ae for more information.