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The Organizational Performance Survey (OPS) System developed by BHC Inc., formerly Behavioral Health Concepts Inc., is an internet-based employee survey system that puts the power of communication back into the employee-manager relationship. Effectively eliminating the need for expensive outside consultants, managers are given the capability to measure and analyze an organization’s functioning through the employees’ eyes.
The OPS system provides a survey to be completed by employees via a password–protected Internet-based tool. With almost no set-up time and at a very small cost, managers are given the opportunity to access employee comments on areas of organizational efficiency, effective management and occupational satisfaction. The information is immediately available online through the Web Analysis Tool providing your organization with useful, timely information.
OPS was designed to measure ten aspects of organizational functioning through the survey:
Thus it can be used to measure organizational functioning in general, as well as organizational reactions to changes in policy or practice.
BHC, Inc. tailors OPS to your organization after which the survey is available to be administered according to your company’s organizational development plan. Who and how many of your employees you survey and what is done to act on the information will be up to you. Typical customization options include a header and introduction, which can include company logo and/or special instructions. Also, the standard OPS survey can include an additional 15 company-specific questions, as well as including the company’s name in the standard questions where appropriate.
There are a few other customization options. Although the survey is currently only available in English, I was informed that BHC Inc. that it could be modified to another language as specified on a per client basis. Also, unfinished surveys could be saved for companies if they so requested (though the likelihood of this being necessary with such a short response time is unlikely). However, BHC does not allow reworking of the core 89 questions on which the analysis of the 10 aspects of organizational functioning is based.
The survey itself has 89 questions that will take an employee approximately 10 minutes to complete and several fields that may be added/modified to identify the employee (time at organization, department, full-time/part-time, age or gender, opinion on potential changes, comments, etc.). All questions must be answered for the survey to be completed. It uses a scale of five for each choice question—from strongly disagree to neutral to strongly agree. This gives employees an effective range in which to situate their experiences and managers cogent information on employee opinions.
The Web Analysis Tool is for use by managers or the survey administrator to access survey results in an understandable and valuable format. There are five summary statistics views that a manager can access over the web: Employee Tally, Simple Summary, Comparison Summary, Advanced Analysis, and Employee Comments. The Employee Tally shows the number of employees and the number and percentage of surveys completed, and can be limited by specific date periods.
The Simple Summary can also be limited by date range and to data in specific categories (eg. only those who are in a specific department or age range or have other specificities brought out in initial questions on survey). It then gives you the results that show the frequency and percentage of each answer (whether strongly agree or strongly disagree) for each question, as well as the mean answer for each question. Finally, it gives you a scale organized by the 10 main areas the survey covers (see above), with the means for each.
With the Comparison Summary function, you can judge your organization’s results against those of other organizations (whether functional or dysfunctional). The Comparison Summary can be limited by date and categories as with the Simple Summary, and you are able to choose which organization to measure results against. Then, using the 10 key factors scale, your company’s mean answers are matched up to those of the comparison company, with the difference between the two clearly set out. As OPS is used by more organizations, more norm groups are added for comparisons.
The Advanced Analysis instrument allows access to more detailed information, which can be limited by date, grouped into specific categories as with the Simple Summary, and then be directed to outline information based on a specific scale (the 10 factors are each a scale) or question in the survey. To make this function even more powerful, the manager is given the choice of which statistics are to be incorporated: Frequencies (number of people who gave each of the possible answers to a question), Minimum Score, Maximum Score, Range of Scores in Group, Sum of All Scores, Average Score (sum divided by N), Standard Deviation (square root of the variance), Variance (mean of the squared deviations of the scores from their mean), N (number of employees in group), and/or Percent of Total in Group. The only objectionable aspect of this tool is that only one scale or question results can be viewed at a time.
Finally, managers can view a list of any comments employees have provided with their survey using the Employee Comments function. These tools combined give managers/survey administrators an excellent source for survey analysis that will be productive and meaningful.
Using an effective employee survey to measure organizational performance can be a key factor in measuring organizational health generally and employee and company effectiveness and productivity specifically. After you’ve gotten commitment from top management to this Human Resources project and have decided what content you need and want for the purposes you want the survey to serve, its time to find software to fill those needs. The tool you choose should allow you to design and implement the survey, collect and analyze the data and report on the data. The OPS system is a pre-packaged version of this, which, although lacking in design and implementation options as well as diverse report features, could be very effective for what your company needs with its focus on the 10 most important aspects of organizational performance. The best way to tell whether that could be true for you is to conduct a needs analysis beforehand (something you should really do anyways before implementing any new employee survey).
In terms of cost, survey software related to organizational health can range from free to over $60,000 US, depending on the look and feel of the software, the number of survey templates and whether it is an already prepared survey (such as OPS) or one you design yourself from a library of sample questions, the variety of answer fields and of pre-made scales, delivery options (from intranet to internet to kiosks), analysis tools included and report functions available. Certainly, the OPS system is a lower cost option, but, as such, it does not perform on the same level as more expensive alternatives. The ability to customize the survey is limited, as are the analysis functions and, in particular, the reporting feature (basically you can just export or print out the analysis and the reporting is up to you from there). That having been said though, it may be all your company needs and, if so, is a cost effective choice compared to big money, time consuming and elaborate software programs.
Since the OPS system is entirely Internet based, there is no software installation to reckon with. The initial customization by BHC Inc. of the OPS system to your company and installation of a secure password-coded access to your survey is all that is necessary. Once you have decided on any additional questions and are ready for setup, there is a typical waiting time of 5 business days for BHC Inc. to customize the survey.
The most pressing limitation that may turn you off of the OPS system is its lack of a separate reporting tool. This may make the step from survey analysis to reporting results to top management and employees respectively harder than it might otherwise be. However, so long as you have your own software that can effectively take the analysis reports from the web and turn it into a fully customized report, you’ll be fine (all you really need after all is some color, visual aids and statements on conclusions to be drawn). Also, BHC can customize the Web Analysis Tool to fit a companies report format on a per client basis and clients have the standard capability of exporting the summary data in the form of a graph.
OPS has a one-time set up fee of $150.00 US to establish your company’s survey, after which there is a charge of $1.00 US per employee completing the survey online and $1.90 US for the paper version (including data entry). Therefore the actual cost will vary on the basis of how many employees are surveyed how often. Companies with more than 2000 employees should keep in mind that 20% or less employees surveyed can still be statistically accurate. The cost is, thus, very low compared to other options.
Your manager/administrator(s) are given a protected password to the server where their OPS results are stored and they will be the only people with access to the data accumulated from the survey. Importantly, the OPS system provides safeguards for employee privacy as well. If the results of a selected category limitation yield an N value of 1, then no results will be displayed. In fact, no raw data is released to the company for that same reason. There is no way for responses to be matched to employee names.
Help is available through the Web Analysis tool via e-mail technical support, live technical support (i.e. use HumanClick to have an online chat with a live technical support person—no software required), and telephone support. There is also an extra help feature to help stave off any questions about functions.
All you need is a computer with effective Internet capabilities, i.e. a newer version browser and modem. Older computers with a slower connection speed may have trouble accessing the information and surveys effectively. I would recommend that effective Internet access be available throughout the organization for employee access to the survey, though BHC Inc. offers a paper format survey they will upload into the OPS system if this is unrealistic.
OPS is exceedingly easy to use with point and click features, choice lists for specific data questions, and easy to read and understand wording for questions. The Web Analysis Tool is just as simple in its application as the survey itself. If you have any familiarity with a mouse and how it works, you will have no problems functioning in the OPS system.
At the end of this review I’m very struck by the beautiful simplicity of this product. Although many employee survey tools seem to have fallen into the trap of bigger, louder, brighter, faster equals better, this one gives you an excellent basic survey tool, with great analysis functions, without a lot of unnecessary pomp that shoots up prices and creates hard to use software. The fact that the OPS system is used by many State agencies also speaks to me of its appeal for the cost efficient organization. I would recommend it as an excellent lower cost, lower scale option.
BHC Inc., formerly Behavioral Health Concepts Inc. offer specialized services and products for health care, business and government in the areas of organizational effectiveness and program and productivity evaluation. The corporate office is located in Columbia, Missouri and they offer services nationwide. For more information about OPS, they can be contacted at the following: