How to Create a Successful Employee Survey

Developing an employee survey that is effective in bringing out valuable and truthful responses can be tricky. As a matter of fact, according to the Aberdeen Group, only 70% of global companies have an internal communications plan in place. Unsurprisingly, many organizations are still at a loss regarding the best way to truly manage and measure employee engagement.

In order to come up with an employee survey that not only seeks effective internal communication but an increase in employee engagement, here are some of the things you need to remember:

1. Be clear about your goals.

While your ultimate goal may be to increase employee engagement, you shouldn’t stop there. Attempting to measure employee engagement is simply not enough. Before you hand out your employee survey, decide on what you want to do with the information you will be getting. Does your internal communication strategy involve benchmarking data with other companies in your industry? Do you want to get your employees to express their ideas regarding particular issues? Is there a problem currently occurring that made you want to create an employee survey? Consider all your goals when creating and developing your survey so that you can include questions that will help in answering all your specific queries.

2. Understand the difference between engagement and satisfaction.

A lot of companies focus on creating their survey designs. However, in the end, they find that they’ve added too many lagging questions that have nothing to do with what they really wanted to find out in the first place. In the end, they end up with data points that are of no use to them.

Understand that if you want to measure employee engagement, you aren’t measuring satisfaction. While engagement gives a prediction on commitment, performance and productivity, satisfaction gives a prediction on absenteeism and employee turnover. Determine which of the two you want to measure and create questions that address the issue you want to address.

3. A survey isn’t about you. It’s about everyone.

The creation of a survey isn’t your responsibility alone. Get managers and employees involved – after all, they’re the ones you want to better understand. Furthermore, the more you get them involved in your internal communication plan, the more transparent and trustworthy you will appear.

Once data has been collected and analysed, make sure you communicate the results to your staff members, as well as the reactionary strategies you want to do for each point that proved to be significant.

4. Surveys are not end goals. They are mere starting points.

Employee engagement does not end with handing out surveys and collecting data. What surveys are supposed to do is to break the ice in order to start meaningful conversations. Following a survey, typical conversations would include collaboration and camaraderie, job satisfaction, leadership and learning opportunities, and talent utilization.

5. Take action.

Employee surveys are only successful if they produce results. Because employees took time out to truthfully answer them, companies have to double their effort when it comes to making sure that action is taken. If action is implausible, then don’t conduct a survey. Non-action will just result in employees feeling like they wasted their time, and that the organization doesn’t care to hear about what they have to say.

Follow up, update your employees on the actions you plan to take, and take action. By following through with your action plan, you will strengthen your relationship with your staff members, and they, in turn will feel more engaged in the company. More engagement then means more commitment to the company and an increase in productivity.