SDG&E; Polls Employee Attitudes : Bosses Seen as Out of Touch With Workers, Survey Finds
San Diego Gas & Electric employees are worried that their bosses are out of touch with them and that promotions are based on favoritism instead of merit, according to a companywide worker survey released Wednesday.
“Although there isn’t anything (in the responses) that we didn’t expect, we’ve got our work cut out for us,” acknowledged George Weida, SDG&E; vice president of human resources. He added that employee concern in those two areas was higher than anticipated.
“The employees are sending us a message,” said Weida, who promised that the utility would move to correct “both problems and perceptions of problems. The worst thing you can do is conduct a survey and then don’t do anything.” The survey, which cost $75,000, drew responses from 90% of the utility’s 4,800 employees and was the first employee survey by SDG&E; in 32 years.
Overall, two-thirds of SDG&E;’s employees rated SDG&E; as a “good” place to work, compared to other companies they know about. A higher number, 76%, said they were “satisfied” with the work that they are doing.
‘Losing Awareness’
Those two responses are in line with results from other recent utility company surveys, Weida said.
However, two-thirds of employees who responded were worried that the utility is “losing awareness of employee concerns.”
“There is no consensus in SDG&E; that employee interests are really taken into account in making important decisions,” reported Hay Associates, a Philadelphia-based firm that conducted the survey.
The utility is also concerned with the “perception that favoritism and sponsorship” account for promotions and with employee concern that SDG&E; managers are “not really managing as well as they should be,” according to Weida.
Weida suggested that employees are actually complaining that they aren’t always being pushed hard enough. In fact, 32% of the survey respondents said the company earned a “poor” rating when it came to “disciplining employees when necessary.”
Interestingly, Weida said, current SDG&E; employee concerns mirror those in the survey completed 32 years ago. “Actually, these concerns are very similar anywhere you go in the country,” Weida said.
