Are you helping your staff achieve career goals?

One of the great things about employee surveys is how they empower businesses to discover ways that they can provide more effective support for their staff.

With talent at a premium, keeping your people happy isn't a luxury but an absolute imperative.

The cost of hiring and training new staff alone should be motivation enough to do all you can to hold on to experienced and capable people.

For this reason, it is important to maintain a proactive approach in identifying issues in staff engagement.

An employee satisfaction survey is an excellent method of doing so.

With online survey software you can customise the content, layout and design of your surveys so that they provide you with precisely the information your require.

And beyond simplistic results like finding out whether or not your staff as a whole are satisfied or engaged, they can allow you to delve deeper into the issues affecting your workforce and generate intelligence that can inform proactive people management strategies.

For example, did you realise that a failure to discuss career development with your staff may be affecting their engagement?

That's what a survey conducted in November 2012 by career transition management firm Fairplace suggests.

Fairplace found that 39 per cent of British workers had never once discussed their career plans with their line manager.

As a result, only 11 per cent of workers said they could see opportunity for long term development with their current employer, and 26 per cent said they didn't have a career plan.

Penny de Valk, Fairplace chief executive officer, says employers that fail to demonstrate how their organisations can help to further their workers' careers risk "a dip in engagement levels, a loss of discretionary effort, and a struggle in developing and retaining talent".

"Most employees need support to understand where their skills and qualifications could take them, and to set targets for progression," said Ms de Valk.

This survey goes to show that the causes for employee disengagement may be more complex and unexpected than you think – all the more reason to monitor staff satisfaction on a regular basis.