Employee Survey as Internal Communications Feedback Solution

Sometimes it is difficult to find out whether your employees have seen your message or whether they have understood it correctly. There is no way also to determine whether the delivered message gave information valuable to employees using a one-way communication channel.

Maybe time is not enough to explain the objectives or there is fear in getting negative feedback. Regardless of the reason, continuing to implement employee policies or initiatives despite being blind to their needs is a useless endeavor and in some cases can be costly. Poor communication lead to repetitive actions, time spent on clarifying the message and damaging relationship between managers and employees. Hence, it is essential to consider desktop instant surveys as a feedback tool to eliminate these communication barriers.

What is an employee survey?

An employee survey sent on employees’ desktops is similar to a traditional questionnaire, only that these surveys can be created only within seconds, delivered within minutes and compiled electronically. It is a quiz pop-up inviting users to participate with a single click-through.

Target departments or groups can receive the survey simultaneously through supported synchronization across unlimited domains. It’s the fastest way to get feedback from the staff and the distribution can be scheduled to a defined date and time. It can be also be formatted with a desired template, and can be designed to allow open-answer, multiple-answer and conditional questions. It is an ideal tool to solicit opinions, analyze the status of the workforce and explore strategic opportunities as well as measure employee morale, performance and satisfaction.

How reliable will an employee survey be received and answered?

A statistics feature allows companies to track the delivery of surveys to target users and devices. A reporting system can identify who have responded to your message and give you an idea of the response rate of your employees. The survey guarantees high visibility as it will be in a form of pop-up window where employees are requested to send in a response. It is a perfect internal communicates tool that guarantees instant delivery and response.

How can I use the survey to gauge employee engagement?

Your employees are your brand ambassadors and their engagement level directly impacts external customer satisfaction. As such, you can utilize employee surveys as an excellent tool for gaining insights to your workforce, gauge the level of their engagement and satisfaction, identify their concerns and explore how these can be addressed. There is no perfect or one-size-fits-all version of employment engagement survey.

Management should be ready to accept negative feedback on questions and must be ready to take action on them. An effective employee engagement survey focuses on what motivates the employees, what makes them committed and satisfied within the company. Will the employees recommend the company to other people seeking employment? Do the employees see opportunities for promotion?

It should be processed by a third party to instill confidence to the employees that their responses are anonymous. To reiterate credibility and show that the Management is listening to the employees, changes must be implemented where it’s possible.

How can I maximize employee surveys to get other benefits?

Aside from improving employee engagement, using surveys can be a quick solution to check the impact of a corporate strategy. It can also be a platform to check the perceived value of a new product, campaign or development. It can assist on improving customer service especially on locations that receive low customer service scores. However, it is not just groups with low results or engagement levels that should be analyzed. You can also do surveys from top performers to have control factors in determining the areas that need to be addressed.

What are the things to consider in creating desktop instant surveys?

First of all, make sure that your survey is not too long, else employees might not take time to fill it out and instead do shotgun answering just to get over it. It should be short, direct and clear. Although you are free to choose open-ended questions, the current season or activity of the company must be considered to determine the best type of questions that can be given.

During budgeting season for instance, it is ideal to send short multiple answer questions or “yes or no” to people at the Finance or Accounting departments. Relevant questions should be segmented to targeted users at a particular time. Is it better to schedule the distribution of survey in the morning, before lunch, or at the end of the working day? All of these are factors on how will employees take the survey seriously.

Sending out employee surveys help improve the bottomline health of the organization by building positive employee relations and a positive working environment. Companies gain employee loyalty and a pleasant working climate that are key indicators for high employee retention and productivity.