Keeping Your Employee Engagement Survey Alive
Have you ever heard your employees say, “Why bother? Nothing ever changes,” in regards to your Employee Opinion Survey? Many companies conduct surveys and most repeat the process, diligently tracking their results with the goal of improving year after year. A great deal of the companies that we work with have become masters of utilizing the results to improve their culture. When clients repeat an Employee Opinion Survey multiple times, it becomes challenging to keep the survey alive year after year.
We want to ensure that you also become masters at improving your culture through the survey process. We thought it would be helpful to provide some insights into just what these masters do to continue reenergizing their surveys. They’ve figured out how to keep participation levels high.
Most organizations start off with a solid process. Then, once the organization becomes more of an expert in the process, sometimes parts of the process get left out, or more seasoned managers fly solo and do their own thing. Unfortunately, this is the start of the process becoming too causal or losing the checks and balances.
We have found that, in some cases, organizations stop communicating the outcomes of the survey. They figure that because they do it every year, employees should know that their opinions are valued and their input is used. We wish this were true. However, employees simply forget or, other times, know there were changes, but they don’t know that they were a result of the survey. This is when we start to hear, “Why bother?” coming from employees.
To ensure that employees see the value of participating in an Employee Opinion Survey and provide honest feedback, get and keep employees involved in every part of the process. Based on our experience with surveying thousands of employees worldwide, we offer five keys to ensure a successful Employee Opinion Survey.
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Communicate Results
This is such an important part of the process. Every client asks, “How much of the data should we share with employees?” The answer is easy. The Best-of-the-Best clients we work with share all of the overall company results with every employee. When you think about it, employees in general already know the results since employee responses usually contribute upwards of 80% of the data. The only people who might be surprised by the results are the managers.
So what should be in the communication package to employees? Typically we suggest the following:
-The highest and lowest rated questions
-The overall scores for the entire organization, question by question
-A letter from the CEO stating what they are proud of in the highest rated areas and are committed to addressing employee concerns in some of the lower rated areas
-A time frame for the roll out of the surveyOnce the overall results have been communicated to all employees, each manager then takes responsibility for communicating their individual department data to their direct reports. This step should be done within 30 days of receiving the data.
A full and timely disclosure of all appropriate data to employees will increase employee’s confidence in surveys, show employees that the survey is being taken seriously and that the data will be used to address employee concerns.
- Take Action
To be successful, it is critical that you take action based on the survey results. Taking action looks different at various levels within the organization. At the top of the organization, senior leaders will be taking action based on the overall data for the entire company. They also might take action based on breakout data collected just for senior leaders.
Actions also might be developed for different divisions or business units within an organization. While these are important, the most important actions are actually those at the manager or supervisor level because actions developed at this level include employees. If you skip this step, we promise that not only will it be difficult to get employees to take your next survey, but in many cases, your scores will decrease the next time you survey, indicating less employee satisfaction.
- Involve Managers And Employees
Once employees have seen the overall data for the organization, it is important that they also get the data specific to their department or team. Give it to them 24 hours ahead of when you plan to hold your action planning meeting. To ensure the success of your action planning meeting, follow the steps below:
-Start off the meeting on a positive note by asking team members to talk about areas in the survey that they feel positive about, and for their thoughts on why the organization or team has been successful in this area. Don’t forget to start with the positive to ensure the session doesn’t become negative.
-Give team members a minute or two to review the data and individually note areas that they would like to see addressed.
-Have team members share their thoughts about areas that concern them. Lead the group to consensus pertaining to the one or two areas where they feel, if concerns were addressed and actions taken, would make the team even stronger, or create an even better place to work.
-Through discussion, analyze the root cause of the areas of concern/areas where the group said they wanted to focus. Then, ask employees to identify what actions they, as employees, could take to address the concerns, and for their thoughts on what actions the manager or supervisor could take. These should be actions developed for both employees and managers.Using this format for action planning ensures that employees have the opportunity to discuss their concerns and provide ideas about actions they think will address these concerns. This makes them even more of a part of the process and validates the importance of the survey.
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Hold Managers Accountable For Department Results
As we write this early in the third quarter of 2011, the worst of the recession appears to be behind us. It is reasonable to believe that employees, once again, will be considering their employment options. A recent survey by the Corporate Executive Board, a research and advisory firm, compiled information from more than 4,300 exit interviews from 80 companies. When comparing the 2011 data to the 2008 data in response to the statement, “I would not recommend my former employer,” they noted a significant rise in the data; 75% in 2011 as compared to 42% in 2008. This same study also suggests that upwards of 2 million workers who voluntarily left their positions in May 2011 may have done so simply because they are resentful of how they had been treated by their employer during the recession.
Motivated employees are essential to any successful organization. How do you attract and keep the best and the brightest? By holding your managers responsible for being great team leaders. Employees may come to your company because you have a job they are interested in or because you offer a great compensation package, but they leave or stay with your organization because of the relationship they have with their immediate supervisor.
In truth, some supervisors and managers do not like Employee Opinion Surveys. They know that their employees have some issues with their leadership and are fearful of the results. They are not good at soliciting feedback and taking action based on the results. If given the choice, these managers and supervisors would rather not distribute the data or hold an action planning meeting. If possible, they will do everything they can to ignore the results.
In today’s economy, it is critical that you hold leaders accountable for taking action based on their survey outcomes. Increasingly, it is apparent that your very best employees will have more employment options in the future as the economy recovers. Don’t let your talent migrate to your competitor. Survey and hold managers accountable for meeting with their teams and developing an action plan with employee input. If the manager does not have the facilitation skills to conduct the session, HR can always lend a helping hand or bring in an expert to hold a how-to session for managers.
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Keep the Survey Alive
Many employees see opinion surveys as a single event happening at a designated time. To ensure the success of your survey, it is critical that leaders keep the survey “buzz” alive throughout the cycle. For example, senior leaders at “all hands” meetings should periodically say, “Based on your input from our recent employee opinion survey, the three actions we are taking are…” Routinely provide employees with updates on the success of the actions being taken, and get their input on whether or not these actions are working. Individual leaders should do the same with their team actions, referencing them several times between surveys.
The clients who routinely score in our Best-of-the-Best Benchmark are masters at systematically referencing the survey and the importance of employee input, giving them specific ideas for creating an even better work environment. Using survey data, they are continually tweaking the culture to create a work environment that results in employees saying, “I love coming to work.”
