Are You Puzzled By a Department’s Employee Engagement Survey Results?
Have you ever said to yourself, “What happened with department…,” after reviewing your employee opinion survey results? We have, and many times. The average scores can be all between 70 and 80 percent favorable, then your eye catches it: 40%. You can’t help your desire to be a fly on the wall in that department. As a VP or HR director, it is alarming.
After conducting hundreds of employee opinion surveys over the past twenty years, we pride ourselves on being experts in analyzing and interpreting survey data for our clients. Sometimes, though, the data can be puzzling, as outsiders or insiders. Every now and then, our clients ask, “If we all work for the same employer, how can the majority of our employees’ scores average in the mid 70s to low 90s, and the scores for these departments average in the 40s and 50s?”
When asked this question, our response is always, “We don’t exactly know.” While the quick response might be “leadership,” we’ve learned that isn’t always the root cause of the high levels of employee dissatisfaction. We can look at the lowest rated questions and make an educated guess, but after all the years of being in the survey business, sometimes we are still surprised at what causes employees to have such varying levels of satisfaction/dissatisfaction. We have seen it be as simple as continually broken equipment or as complex as odd leadership practices.
When challenged with trying to identify causes for dissatisfaction when a team/department’s scores are significantly lower, we recommend interviewing employees one-on-one to learn more about their concerns. This will provide you with the information you need to move forward and leave no unanswered questions. The survey will help identify areas in need of attention, but it is the interviews that will provide you with the details of why the area is so low.
While interviewing is not typically needed, it can be extremely helpful in the departments that are drastically out of range. The following are some tips for conducting successful follow up interviews.
Who Should Interview: We would also suggest conducting these individual interviews before conducting any group action planning sessions. Ideally, the interviews should be facilitated by a neutral third party, giving employees a heightened sense of anonymity. The interviewer could be an HR representative or a consultant. The interviewer’s goal should be to gather as much information as possible in a comfortable, non-threatening environment.
What to Ask: When interviewing employees, we suggest using open-ended questions to better understand perspectives. Don’t forget to also ask what is going well. Most forget this step and go straight into what is not working. By asking what is going well, you will be able to provide the leader with balanced feedback which usually helps with the digestion of the other side of the coin. The following questions work well for us when we do follow-up interviews after completing a survey that results in data that is difficult to interpret:
• In general, what is going well in your department/team?
• What areas within your department/team are of concern to you?
• How would you describe communication within your team?
• How would you describe teamwork within your team?
• How would you describe your morale? How would you describe your coworkers’ morale?
• Do you feel you work in a trusting environment?
• Do you have all the tools and resources you need to be successful in your job?
• Do you receive regular performance feedback from your supervisor?
• Do you feel recognized for your contributions to the team’s success?
• Describe your working relationship with your supervisor.
• What are one or two of your supervisor’s strengths?
• What are one or two things your supervisor could do differently to be an even stronger leader?
• What recommendations do you have for improving levels of employee satisfaction in your area?
Summarizing the Feedback: When summarizing the feedback to present to the leader responsible for the data, it will be helpful to indicate how many times a similar comment was shared by individuals. Although you may chose to share all information gathered, what you are really looking for are the prevalent themes. One employee who is disgruntled with a lack of communication is not a concern. However, when ten out of the fourteen employees who were interviewed share communication issues, that’s a significant concern that should be addressed.
Sample Results: The following is an example of how interviewing can help gain clarity of the data.
• Low scoring question: My department is adequately staffed.
Interview Results: Ten individuals noted staffing levels as being a concern. They elaborated that they are so lean that people can’t effectively do their jobs. Because they don’t see the employer considering hiring additional staff, they have given up hope of things getting better. Throughout the team, morale is depressed.
So, when your survey data perplexes you and solutions are not obvious, ask questions. Lots of questions, asked privately, will give you a different perspective and point you in the right direction for meaningful action planning to address employee concerns.
It takes time, but in every situation where we’ve done follow-up interviews to gain clarity on a department/team’s data, not only have we gained insights leading to better understanding of employee concerns, but we have noted that morale starts to improve just by asking the questions. Asking the questions shows employees that their employer cares and wants to better understand their concerns. Sometimes just asking is the first step to raising morale.
