Employee Surveys Hide Real Problem

I love reading these articles that point out an employee survey has faults, but it is important to the success of a company...or is it?

If you have to spend money on a survey to determine employee satisfaction, you need a new way to interact with your personnel. This article praises Gallup for their acclaimed 12 Question Survey, but it then goes on to discuss a consultants view point of surveys. She has her own 100 question survey, but what exactly does it tell a company?

They both seem to take the long (expensive) road to understanding the degree that management has failed to know what their staff thinks about them despite the fact that they see them every day, day after day, one by one, month after month.

I wonder what surveys Whole Foods, Nordstrom, and Costco have needed to spend (waste) money on in order to determine what their employees think about things.