You’re considering conducting an Employee Engagement and Satisfaction survey to see how your staff really feels about working for your organization. It’s a competitive job market, and you want to know that you’ve gathered a team that’s not only dedicated and motivated, but also plan to stay on staff for the foreseeable future. But, how do surveys provide the feedback you need to make real improvements? And how do you know where to start? Read on to learn why actionable reporting, structured to reflect your unique organization, is just what you need to pinpoint exactly which areas of your business need your attention first.

A Job Well Begun is Half Done

The way you set up your survey matters. It matters s lot. A successful project takes into account your goals, how you’ll most likely take action at the end of the project, and other things that can be hard to anticipate, without experience.

Set Clear Goals

To get the most out of your employee survey project, you’ll want to set goals before you begin. When setting a goal, make it a SMART goal. A SMART goal is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. It’s important to identify your goals before you measure employee attitudes, so you’ll know how to respond to the feedback you collect.

Work with Experts

Is the technology available for anyone to set up a survey? Yes. Does that mean anyone can survey your employees successfully? No. There are tons of considerations when you collect data from people; especially your employees. Have you considered how anonymity (perceived and real) affect the validity of your data? Do you know how other employers, of similar size and in the same industry, have approached their survey? What should you do if you have low response rates? Can you improve your response, mid-survey? These are just some of the questions a great employee survey provider, like Best Employee Surveys, can answer for you. Better yet, when you work with a great provider, they’ll be able to tell you what to expect and how it should be handled, to have the easiest and most effective survey experience. If you still need convincing, here’s an article about why you have to work with an employee survey expert.

 

Everything in its Right Place

If you’re doing it right, you’ll give a lot of thought to your workplace demographics before you launch your survey. Workplace demographics are the way your organization groups its employees: departments, locations, hierarchy, business units, and so on. The best practice is to allow respondents to self-select their personal demographics (e.g. such as age, gender, and ethnicity) and to pre-assign your workplace demographics.

The first step is to be thoughtful about how you set up and then use these groups to report. When you do that, you’ll be able to pinpoint precisely which areas of your business need your immediate action. A great survey vendor will be able to guide you to success here.

Once you have determined which workplace demographics you need, then you’ll pre-assign them to each of your employees. While there are lots of benefits to pre-assignment, some of the biggest include accuracy of reporting and calming the nerves of your employees (who are afraid to tell you what they really think).

Expert Execution

When you work with an employee engagement expert, you’ll receive guidance on everything from achieving great response rates to assure your employees of anonymity to the best way to collect feedback from your employees.

When you’re hiring your engagement expert, here are some of the top considerations:

1. They have a great reputation among employers and employees alike;
2. Their survey tool is flawless;
3. They have an easy process, so you can stay  focused on your business; and
4. They not only provide a reports analysis call for  your leadership team, but can tell you how you compare to competitive employers in your market.

This is Just the Beginning

The biggest mistake an employer can make is to avoid taking action after the survey results are in. We’ve heard employers and employees call this phenomenon the ‘black hole.’ As in, ‘what if our survey response data just goes into the black hole and we never hear about it again?’ Part of earning trust from your team is reflecting back to them what they’ve shared with you in your employee survey.

It’s mission critical to have a post-survey communications plan to share results with your employees and then take action. A great engagement expert will offer you guidance on both.

Learn More

You need to know what your employees think. Are they happy? Are they engaged? Do they plan to leave? Would they go the extra mile to see you succeed? That’s where we come in.

When you’re ready to learn more about employee survey timelines, process and pricing, schedule a time to meet with one of our employer coaches. We’ll get all your questions answered.