Editor’s note: Ben Egan is a consultant at U.K.-based HR consultancy and bespoke technology firm ETS.
The world’s biggest companies spend big money on running employee engagement surveys each year. I’ll wager that many aren’t getting their money’s worth, though. What I mean is that, for some companies, running a survey is the employee engagement plan.
In such cases the survey is probably delivering little or no business value. In fact, it could even be harmful to engagement if surveys are taking place with no follow-up or action taken on results.
Why evolution is needed: The approach to employee surveys must evolve to deliver real value. The survey should be a business improvement tool. It should be the starting point for addressing strategically important areas and themes. The springboard for more engaged employees and a more successful company.
In order for such an evolution to be realized, survey questionnaires must be aligned with a company’s strategy. And companies must give greater thought to the action-planning process and supporting managers.
Otherwise, for a large number of companies, employee surveys will remain an expensive check-box exercise.
How to evolve your employee survey approach:
Ease up on response rates. I’m not saying that encouraging a good level of response to your survey isn’t important. But driving up response rates can take over and lead to managers putting pressure on employees to participate. This is not to be recommended.
Of course you’d like as many employees to complete the survey as possible. And, they will. You just need to communicate with them, clearly explaining what the survey will measure, that their feedback will be valued and will remain confidential and how results will be used. This should lead to a naturally high response rate (which is recommended).
Focus on survey results. You should think at the very start of your planning process about what support line managers will need to act on employee survey results.
The reason for starting this thought process early is that you need to think about what data you want to get from the survey and how it’ll be used. Giving this thought from the outset will enable you to tailor the questionnaire design.
This will help managers to better understand what motivates their teams and be able to identify key themes in the results. In doing so, they’ll be able to create relevant action plans. This is the path that leads to business improvement.
Support your managers. Line managers are central figures in any employee survey. In many companies they hold the key to encouraging their teams to participate and will also have a big influence in taking effective action post-survey. With this in mind, make sure you get their buy-in from the start.
This isn’t always easy. We find it helps to make the survey relevant for managers – involve them in the questionnaire design and what the survey should measure. Explain to them how they’ll benefit from increased engagement.
Post-survey, it’s equally important to make it easy for managers to interpret reports and take action. Don’t swamp them with pages of data. You could use a statistical analysis to pick out a handful of questions which managers should focus their efforts on. You need to enable managers to identify the key actions that will improve engagement.
Keep it relevant. One of the main reasons for employee cynicism around employee surveys is that they don’t seem relevant to what people do or experience in a company every day. If surveys lack meaning in this way, the whole process will be undermined. Employees won’t complete the survey and managers won’t take action on results.
For it to be more meaningful, it must be designed with a company’s business strategy at its heart. The survey will thus provide insights and feedback from employees on real business issues.
So what does evolution look like? Evolving your approach in this way should ultimately benefit both employees and the business. Managers will see greater value in the survey process and acting on results. Employees will see that their feedback is listened to and things change as a result.
For the organization, it should lead to a more engaged workforce and business improvement. Of course, these outcomes have always been the point of employee surveys. Some companies have seemingly just forgotten this.