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Photo by Michele Manske

Modern Survey Modern Survey President Don MacPherson.

Taking stock of employee satisfaction

By Michelle Bruch

Now that your job security might be a little more shaky, are you more or less satisfied with your career?

Modern Survey, a company based in the Warehouse District that analyzes worker engagement, studied that question in February with a nationwide survey. Surprisingly, the percentage of people who said they go “above and beyond” at their jobs climbed 6 percent in the last six months. That’s an abrupt turnaround from worker attitudes measured last August, when the percentage of people who said they take pride in their companies declined 7 percent from the prior year.

Modern Survey President Don MacPherson has an explanation for the phenomenon. Back in August, people felt relatively secure in their jobs, he said. The economy was starting to slide, but the most pressing concern at the time was high gas prices. By the month of February, when U.S. employers cut 650,000 jobs and unemployment was suddenly at a 25-year high, attitudes changed.

“After all of those cuts, people looked around and said this is for real, and didn’t necessarily feel entitled to their jobs,” he said.

What MacPherson worries about now is whether employers will properly value people that are working hard to keep their jobs, or whether they will chip away at morale to the point where staff fly for the door as soon as the job market loosens up.

Modern Survey creates survey tools that track employee and customer satisfaction, leadership feedback, job interviews and exit interviews. Interest in the company’s worker engagement study ebbs and flows with the economy, and a slow period now mirrors the recession in 2001.

MacPherson pointed out a study by F. Leigh Branham that said 89 percent of managers think their employees are leaving for more money — but only 12 percent of people cite compensation as the primary reason to leave.

“None of us are paid what we’re worth. We’re always dissatisfied with that,” MacPherson said. “If pay is set at an adequate level, it’s other things.”

Modern Survey figures that in order to stay engaged in your work, you need recognition, personal accomplishment, career development, belief in leaders and adequate compensation.

One company that tested Modern Survey’s theory is Fabcon, a Savage-based manufacturer that installs precast concrete panels. Modern Survey discovered that Fabcon staff thought there was subpar training for new employees, slowing down work for everyone.

Surveys of staff at another financial services company found that employees wanted more opportunities to innovate — innovation was a selling point for new hires, but the company failed to follow through on that promise.

Modern Survey’s roots reach back to the mid-1990s, when MacPherson met CEO and co-founder Patrick Riley at an American Express job where they were working on employee surveys. The company was shipping paper surveys all over the world to reach 120,000 employees in 60 countries, and Riley had the idea to start an online survey company that could compile all of that data electronically.

Riley’s brother Dan also came on board to found the company. The three founders all had backgrounds in human resources, but they weren’t necessarily grooming themselves to become entrepreneurs.

Dan played regular gigs at First Avenue and toured with punk bands called Cooper, Snails and We Invented Tornadoes.

And MacPherson previously played professional basketball in Germany. He moved to Germany for a year because he wanted to become a professor and he needed to learn a foreign language for his Ph.D. program. He had played in basketball in college, and he asked if the basketball team needed any staff. Instead, the coach asked him if he wanted to try out and MacPherson made the team.

MacPherson’s new competitors are corporate powerhouses like Gallup. To give Modern Survey a leg up, staff are looking to create a global network of affiliates that use Modern Survey’s technology to serve their clients.

That strategy got a jumpstart when MacPherson traveled with Gov. Tim Pawlenty to Israel in December. The delegation of businesses toured Jerusalem and met with potential partners.

MacPherson doesn’t expect that future expansion will take Modern Survey out of the Warehouse District, however. Their building at 701 N. 3rd St. is more affordable than the Downtown core, and it’s close to clients as well as the founders’ homes in Northeast and Uptown.

The founders also don’t expect to slash head count now, even though six expansions inside the building have taken them from 800 to 9,000 square feet of office space.

“It took us four years to build the team we have, and it’s an amazing team,” MacPherson said. “If we cut five people or four people, that’s a big percentage of who we are. ... We’re committed to keeping all of our people, because we know that when we come out of this, we’re going to be in a great position.”