Great Lakes Resource Center, owned and operated by partners Tom Finley and Mary Halloran, has been helping companies measure human performance and improve their bottom line since 1994. After previous ventures in building businesses together, Tom and Mary realized their combination of talents positioned them perfectly to become an unusually powerful force in this newly emerging field. We visited Tom and Mary in their Wadsworth offices recently and listened as they explained "measuring your way to profitability";
At Great Lakes Resource Center, we focus on measuring human performance for companies so that they can better understand where they need to improve and where they stand on all aspects of customer, employee, and supplier relations. We develop surveys that measure the performance of people and processes. We customize surveys depending upon the issues of concern to our clients whether they're interested in measuring supplier satisfaction or employee satisfaction issues. After we've developed and implemented the surveys, we interpret the results for the company. That knowledge is then used to determine whether they need to restructure, bring in new resources, or take specific actions. It lets them know not only whether an action needs to be taken, but what type of action will be most effective. It will also help them prioritize their actions in order to increase productivity.
Our relationship with the companies we customize these surveys for is very much a long-term relationship, so some of them ask us to do the follow-up work as well. If we suggest restructuring, they may ask us to develop a plan for that. We have gone so far as to develop and redevelop the mission and vision statements for companies and evaluated their strategic focus. In fact, we have installed a planning system top to bottom for a large organization that opted to stick with us rather than outsource to another firm.
The fact is, if you measure something, you can improve it. We are dedicated to accurately measuring relationships and situations for organizations and managers. We can demonstrate the results - if a survey is given to employees and the overall score is 3 on a scale of 1 to 4, and changes are made and six months later you score a 3.5, you will see that your productivity is also up, leading to increased revenue. It's a measurable difference not only in morale but also on your bottom line.
Sometimes companies think they can go to the Internet and get a few general surveys to download, but these are so general and they just don't get to the heart of the individual company's needs or concerns. Great Lakes Resource Center customizes surveys so the company really gets the information it needs. Whether it's a 2 person or an 8,000 person organization, we've customized surveys that addressed the issues that were important to those specific companies.
We don't just implement a survey, print out the results, and leave. We consider the survey as a process. We focus on a quality relationship with each company and we support our clients long after the survey results are presented. Once the surveys are done, we help implement changes and make sure their bottom line is really improving. We'll be with them until the end, and that end may be months, or even years, down the line. At some point, the company will need to resurvey to see what effect the changes have made.
Outsourcing to a company like Great Lake Resource Center gives a company certain other advantages as well. Many companies today just don't have the manpower to do detailed surveys in house. Management is already overworked and it can be a real burden to handle another task requiring accurate results. When taking a survey, we also guarantee the respondents anonymity which is very important for company surveys. You always want the responses to be as honest as possible, and that's something that is more likely if they know that an outside organization is handling the survey.
At Great Lakes Resource Center, we believe the formula for success is, "Employee satisfaction yields customer satisfaction yields company reaults."
Great Lakes Resource Center can help improve your company's bottom line with their custom surveys and human resource measuring. If you'd like to improve your company's performance, call Great Lake Resource Center today and don't forget to tell them that The Advocate sent you!
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