Employee Satisfaction Surveys – Step by Step Guide
The benefit of running an annual employee survey has for a long time been widely accepted but many organizations have been put off by the amount of effort that is required.
Many organizations who have conducted their own internal employee satisfaction surveys use word-processors to design and compile a survey, then go through the effort of printing and distributing the survey and invest time chasing and collecting the completed surveys and then 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 here are a few of the common reason why employee satisfaction surveys are conducted.
Event Driven
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.
Where an organization is suffering from poor moral brought on by either internal or external influences an employee survey can be used to identify the specific concerns of employees so those concerns can be properly addressed.
An employee survey can help an organization identify the underlying cause of employee unrest that may results in an increase of staff turnover and through the survey 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 also offer senior management the opportunity to look at the soft underbelly of their organization to confirm that their ‘top down’ view of the organization matches the reality and ‘bottom up’ perspective.
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
Management buy-in is always desirable for any initiative and many will argue that it is essential to ensure a successful employee survey, however, in some instances the findings of an employee survey can lead to kick-starting a management that has grown complacent and detached from their 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 degree that management commit to an employee survey will have a bearing on the nature of the survey and to some extent will help determine what questions.
A management that is supportive of the initiative may have specific areas of concern that they require feedback on or they may give the go ahead simply because they have no reason to think that the level of employee satisfaction throughout the organization is anything other than 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.
Deciding on what questions 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.
At the same time as considering what questions to ask consider how the results are to be analyzed. For example there may be a desire to ask for individual comments but these types of answer formats can be very time consuming and cumbersome to analyze and should therefore be avoided or used sparingly.
With online surveys it is generally better to do a few smaller surveys than one very long survey as the longer the survey the higher the drop out rate will be.
Step 4 – Checking And Testing
Grammar, Spelling And Clarity
Before the survey is published carefully check that there are no spelling and typing mistakes or incorrect grammar. It is recommended that you always have a colleague who has not been involved in the survey design to proof read the survey with clean eyes before the survey goes live, if no colleague 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 Respondent to Answer Truthfully
Where the employee will be required to choose from a number of available responses, closed questions, have you allowed the employee to answer accurately? Make use of responses like ‘No Comment’, ‘Not Applicable’ or ‘Don’t know’ where you want to make the question mandatory so that it is not accidentally missed out 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 any questions that you have made mandatory you do require an answer, for example open questions such as asking for additional comments should be made optional unless you definitely require the respondent to write a comment.
Check you will be able to Analyze the Data
Check through the survey again but this time looking at how the results of the survey will be analyzed. Give consideration as to how you will want to analyze the survey data, have you asked the right questions to be able to perform the detailed analysis that you desire? 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 ensure 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 a number of people who will be willing to test the survey. By completing the survey yourself you will get a feel for the survey from a respondent’s point of view. From your own and the feedback of your colleagues stop and fine tune the survey as required.
Continue to repeat this process until you are happy with the survey.
Check The Data
Take time to view the online summary results of the test data and confirm that the data is being collected in a manner that can be properly analyzed and that will give meaningful results.
Step 5 – Deploying and Promoting 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 ABC, either via email or by establishing a link to the survey from your own website or Intranet.
Where there are some or many employees that do not have direct access to the internet there are a number of alternatives that can be used from issuing the survey in printed form, providing a shared terminal or giving them an incentive to complete the survey at home.
Anonymous Responses?
Respondents can be allowed to complete a survey 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 flippant and cavalier with their responses. Some organizations would therefore only want to consider comments where employees are prepared to stand by their convictions and that will also provide an opportunity 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 The Survey
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 any set target it is recommended to send employees one or more reminders to ask them to complete the survey.
Step 7 – Analyzing The Results
There are no hard and fast rules for analyzing the data. Much depends on the individual survey, the questions asked and the number of responses.
Most surveys will benefit from many of the results being displayed as a charts as well as tabular form.
When first analyzing survey data often a number of ‘headline’ results will immediately stand out that will provide you with a general overview and, providing the right questions have been asked, give you an instant assessment of the mood throughout the organization as a whole.
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 any negative view shared by employees of both genders, consistent throughout the organization, or was it restricted to a particular gender and/or 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
The most important step is probably the last. An employee survey will either confirm that the perfect organization exists or it will highlight areas that are less than perfect by identifying individual and common concerns.
It may prove necessary to conduct further, more detailed surveys, to target specific areas. For example the survey may reveal that negative responses are received from employees working in a particular department but the reasons for their negativity may not be clear. A smaller, specifically targeted 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 the organizations ‘personality’ will go someway to influencing the tone and nature of the survey and organizations will have many different circumstances and primary reasons 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.
