Step by Step Guide to Employee Satisfaction Surveys
The benefits of conducting an annual employee survey is widely accepted but many organizations have been put off by the amount of effort those annual surveys take to deploy.
Many organizations who have bit the bullet and conducted their own internal employee satisfaction surveys have often relied on word-processors to allow them to design and compile a survey, then gone through the effort of printing and distributing the survey and spent time chasing and collecting the completed surveys and then even more time transferring the survey response information into a meaningful management report.
Fortunately with the introduction of the Internet and hosted survey websites what was once a time consuming, resource hungry, long winded and cumbersome process is now slick, quick and easy.
Document here is a step by step guide to help implement a survey that will bring considerable benefits to any organization.
Step 1 - Identifying The Need
There are numerous reasons an organization might need a survey. Listed below are a few of the common reason why organizations conduct employee satisfaction surveys.
Event Driven Drivers
If your organization is about to embark, or is going through, a process reengineering program a series of employee surveys can assist in managing the change program, measure the effectiveness of the change, help to deliver a ‘message’ and gather valuable feedback throughout the change cycle.
For organizations that are experiencing rapid growth employee surveys can monitor internal communications and management structures to ensure that employees are aware of their reporting and management responsibilities.
If an organization is suffering from poor moral stemming from either internal or external influences an employee survey can be used to identify what the specific concerns of employees are so that those concerns can be properly addressed.
Where there is an increase in turnover of staff employee surveys can help an organization identify the underlying cause of employee unrest and through their findings help find solutions.
Periodically
As part of a periodic assessment, surveys will help an organization review their personnel and monitor on an individual level job satisfaction, training and career development.
Employee surveys will allow the senior management team the opportunity to look at what makes their organisation tick and confirm, or not, that their ‘top down’ view matches the reality and ‘bottom up’ perspective of their employees.
Employee surveys will help an organization establish good employee/employer communication that will in turn bring direct and indirect benefits.
Step 2 - Management Buy-In
It is always desirable and sometimes essential to have management support for a survey but where a management team might have grown complacent and detached from their employees the survey results may be all that is required to get them to positively reengage with the business and employees.
Some organization may be fortunate in that the senior management recognize and drive the need for employee surveys, while in others the management may need to first be convinced of the direct and indirect benefits an employee survey will bring.
The level of management commitment to an employee survey will have some bearing on the nature of the survey and to some extent will help determine what questions are to be asked and the manner they are asked.
A management that is supportive of the initiative may require feedback on specific areas of the business or they may give the go ahead because they feel confident that the results will only confirm that the level of employee satisfaction throughout the organization is high.
Ideally management will buy-in to the employee survey from the very start as they have the most to gain and they are in a position to effect any change that is later identified as being required.
Step 3 - Designing the Survey
Designing a good survey will take some time and effort but by following the basics of survey design and concentrating on the ‘need to know’ questions and removing the ‘nice to know’ a survey will rapidly take shape.
Determining the exact questions that should be asked will be entirely dependent on the individual organization, its structure and the previously identified primary need and objectives of the employee survey.
While considering what questions to ask give consideration to how the results are to be analyzed. For example there is nearly always a wish to ask for individual comments but these free text answers can be very time consuming and cumbersome to analyze and should therefore be used very sparingly.
Online surveys make it practical to conduct multiple smaller surveys than one very long survey and avoid the higher the drop out rate that are associate with longer surveys.
Step 4 - Proof Reading And Testing
Spelling, Grammar and Clarity
Before the survey is published carefully check that there are no spelling and typing mistakes or incorrect grammar. If available it is always better to have someone who has not been involved in designing the survey to proof read the survey with clean eyes, if no one is available try to take a break before checking through the survey again.
Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say
When checking the survey you should consider the survey from the viewpoint of the respondent, will the employee interpret the question the same way that you intended them to?
Allow The Employee To Answer Truthfully
Check that for closed questions where the employee will be required to choose from a number of available responses; have allowed the employee to answer accurately? Make use of answer response options like ‘No Comment’, ‘Not Applicable’ or ‘Don’t know’ where you want to make the question mandatory but the employee may not be able to answer.
Consider allowing the employee to include an ‘Other’ answer but also appreciate that ‘Other’ answers will add to the complexity when analyzing the survey results.
Don’t Require A Response To Questions That May Not Have One
Check that for questions that have been made mandatory that you definitely do require an answer, for example open questions that ask for additional comments should be made optional unless you really do require the respondent to write a comment.
Check the Result Data can be Properly Analyzed
Make another check of the survey but this time examine how the results of the survey will be analyzed. Consider how you are likely to want to analyze the survey data, have you asked the right questions to be able to perform detailed analysis? For example if you want to be able to view the detailed response data from the perspective of the different departments, or maybe length of service, check you have asked the employee to indicate their own department and/or length of service.
Don’t Ask Anymore Questions Than You Need To
Consider all the questions in the survey and make sure that they are all ‘need to know’ questions.
Test The Link And Try Completing The Survey
Publish the survey and then send the survey’s link to colleagues who will be able to help you test the survey. By completing the survey yourself you will get a feel for how the respondent will view the survey. From your own and others feedback stop and make adjustments to the survey as required.
Repeat this process until you are happy with the survey.
Check the data
Take the time to view the online results of the test data and ensure that the data is being collected and can be analyzed in a manner that will give meaningful results.
Step 5 - Promoting And Deploying The Survey
Where all or the majority of employees have access to the Internet or company intranet deploying the online survey is as easy as falling off a log, either via email or by establishing a link to the survey from your own website or the Intranet.
If there are employees that do not have direct access to the Internet there may be a number of alternatives that can be used such as issuing the survey in printed form, providing access through a shared terminal or giving them an incentive to complete the survey at home.
Allowing Anonymous Responses?
There is a choice to allow all surveys to be completed anonymously. A survey where respondents are allowed to be anonymous may encourage employees to speak their minds promoting ‘a warts and all’ approach, in turn giving management an opportunity to address potentially serious problems before it is too late.
However, allowing anonymous comments also allows employees to be more cavalier and flippant with their responses. Some organizations may only wish to take account of the views of those employees that are prepared to stand by their convictions and that will also allow the organization to follow up the specific concerns of individual employees.
Deciding to allow anonymous responses or not will mainly be down to the individual organization, the specific nature of the survey, the type of survey, the management style and the existing employee/employer relationship.
Step 6 - Monitoring
While the survey is in progress you will be able to view the summary results online and also monitor in real-time the number of surveys that have been both started and completed.
If after a few days the number of completed surveys falls short of the expected target it is advisable to send periodic reminders to employees asking them to complete the survey.
Step 7 - Analyzing the Results
When it comes to analyzing the results data there are no hard and fast rules. Much will depend on the specific survey, the questions that are asked and the number of responses that are received.
Most surveys will benefit from many of the results being displayed in graphical as well as tabular form.
On the proviso that the right questions have been asked when the survey data is first analyzed a number of ‘headline’ results will often stand out that can provide you with an overview and an assessment of the general mood of the organization.
In areas where the results indicate areas of concern a more detailed analysis may be advisable. For example if employees were asked if they felt the organization provided equal opportunities to both genders and 25% gave a negative response it would be useful to know the gender split of the organization and also to look at what the gender split was of the 25% that answered negatively. Was the negative view shared by employees of both genders, evenly spread throughout the organization, or of a particular gender from a particular department?
Reports can display the result data in tabular and/or graphical form allowing those who are interested in the results to view the raw data.
Often used as a complement to the first, another method is to interpret the results and provide an analysis of the data and offer a view as to what the meaning is behind the results, what circumstances may have contributed to the results being as they are and, where the results indicate a negative, what initiatives could be taken. Such analysis if done by a single individual is likely to be very personal, if done by a committee it is still likely to be objective and therefore open to interpretation.
Step 8 - Further Action
Probably the most important step is the last. The results of an employee survey will either confirm that the perfect organization really does exist or, and more likely, it will by the individual and common concerns that are raised identify the areas that are less than perfect.
It may prove necessary to conduct further, more detailed surveys, to target specific areas. For example the survey may reveal that employees working in a particular department are collectively unhappy, but the reasons for their dissatisfaction may not be clear. A highly focused follow-up survey may help reveal the root causes.
When employee surveys are periodically run an organization that has taken steps to address issues will see their efforts reflected in subsequent survey responses. Almost all organizations have problems and it helps an organization’s moral to see that a channel exists that will highlight problems that can then be addressed and resolved.
Summary
It is hoped that these guidelines will help an organization conduct successful employee satisfaction surveys, they are however, only a guide.
Each organization is different in style and structure and that will directly influence the tone and nature of the survey and will also dictate what the primary and secondary reasons are for conducting a survey.
By utilizing existing technology and conducting surveys online you are now able to monitor the heart beat of an organization, quickly, easily and, by using websites like www.surveygalaxy.com, at minimal cost.
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Tags: employee, employee relations, employee satisfaction, employer, feedback, human resources, management, Online surveys, personnel, satisfaction surveys