Five steps to improve employee surveys

One of the reasons employee surveys have been getting a kicking recently (just check out other commentary for evidence) is a lingering perception that organisations won’t act on them. This is unfair – I don’t think anyone spends money on such surveys with the aim of ignoring them – but employers could get far more from them by involving their people in the process. Rather than treating them purely as passive recipients of a questionnaire, organisations should seek ideas and feedback from employees to inspire enthusiasm and advocacy for the exercise. I offer the following suggestions of steps to success.

1.      Involve employees in design – every organisation will have core questions that are repeated every time a survey is run. But don’t stick purely to these questions if they ignore current, pressing issues on which employees want a say. Explore whether there are other areas that you need to cover. Involve an employee panel if you have one, or regular focus groups if you run them. Take soundings from managers or employee representatives. It might identify other issues on which employee views would be valuable and on which questions would inspire them to take part.  

2.     Involve employees in communication – some organisations still follow a ‘hit and hope’ approach to survey implementation, sending out questionnaires supported by generic communication materials. But we’d never do this in any other campaign: we know we need diverse methods to connect and communicate with different employee groups, who prefer to engage with the company in different ways. So ask people in different parts of the organisation how you can best communicate with them and their colleagues regarding the survey. Then shape your communication plan and the tactics involved accordingly.

 

3.     Involve employees as champions – in many other initiatives, it is accepted good practice to seek employee ‘champions’ who can spread the word to colleagues. Yet it’s comparatively rare in connection with employee surveys, despite the benefits it could bring. Why not identify ’influencers’ for your different employee groups and connect with them to explain the aims of the survey. Emphasise that employee feedback can help shape the company, and that the survey is not being done for ‘show’. Ask them to encourage colleagues to take part, because the more voices you hear, the more compelling the evidence will be.

4.     Involve employees in analysis – not in the data crunching itself, but in interpretation of what the numbers really tell you about your organisation. It’s easy to draw conclusions from the centre, or based on a provider’s comparison with other companies, but discussing hypotheses and testing interpretations with employees can be a powerful way of rooting interpretation in the specific circumstances and culture of your particular company.

5.    Involve employees in action planning – finally, keep involving employees as you consider how to address the themes raised by your survey. After all, they have raised the issues: let them help shape the solutions. Creating working parties for different parts of the business, with a cross-section of employees in each, is a good way of spreading ownership of the process and inspiring collective commitment to action.

These are simple steps that would help to establish surveys as an effective part of continuous improvement for everyone in the company, not “yet another initiative” from the centre. As with so many things in the world of engagement, involving employees holds the key.