Mystery Employee Research

Recently we've had several articles on mystery shoppers, explaining how and why they're a useful evaluation tool for your company. But customer satisfaction isn't the only part of a successful business – employee satisfaction is equally as important, and something that very few companies know how to discover. One idea that a company may want to employ is that of a mystery employee.

A mystery employee is an employee that is hired at a low level or entry level position to report to only a select few upper management professionals on how they are being treated as an employee. For some this could be only for a few days, where the employee reports on how training went and how friendly the staff has been on introductions, or it could be permanent, where the employee is hired for a role in the company but also works as an insider to discover problems with management, training, or tasks.

Insider View An employee that reports on their treatment, training, and experience from the beginning can give you a lot of insight into the employee experience. It's not a substitute for employee satisfaction surveys – remember, one employee is still just one employee, and their treatment doesn't necessarily reflect the treatment of all other employees – but if they're trained and ready from the day they start to describe what they see, how, and why, then they could be insightful as to what other employees experience their first few days too. Voice to the Employee These types of employees can report on what other employees experience as well.

They can be the eyes and ears of their coworkers, and while names shouldn't be given (since this could hurt workplace relationships), they can at least have a voice that is a direct like to an important executive. Management Accountability It's often said that if someone says their manager is not a good manager, it must be true, because the ability to manage is dependent on employees feeling that their contributions are valued and their manager appreciates their work. An insider employee gives your company the opportunity to find out which managers are not managing well, and may force management to be friendlier knowing that their actions might be watched by a mystery employee.

Ensuring that you have a healthy workplace environment is crucial for your business's success, but generally it's difficult to get an accurate picture of what the workplace is like for lower level/entry level employees. Having a secret insider employee, either just for the workplace trainings or as a snitch for executives can be advantageous in learning more about how your company operates.