You have decided to take the plunge and conduct your first employee engagement survey.
You have visions of taking the company to next level and transforming a culture full of innovation and excitement.
Or you cannot wait to see your hunch confirmed that you have very engaged workforce.
Here are some best practices to get the most out of your employee engagement survey.
1) Lay a good foundation
Educate your staff on employee engagement
Employee engagement is the extent to which employees feel passionate about their jobs, are committed to the organization, and put discretionary effort into their work.
Employee engagement is getting up in the morning thinking, “Great, I’m going to work. I know what I’m going to do today. I’ve got some great ideas about how to do it really well. I’m looking forward to seeing the team and helping them work well today.”
Why is it important?
Research shows that organizations with high levels of employee engagement are more efficient and effective, and that highly engaged employees:
- are more customer focused, find they are more creative at work, and take less time off sick;
- care about the future of their organization and put in greater effort to help it meet its objectives;
- feel proud of the organization they work for and are inspired to do their best and motivated to deliver the organization’s objectives.
Employee engagement is a team effort
Together we can make it an even better place to work. Without employee feedback, we cannot make the changes needed.
Establish ground rules on survey discussion
The key to honest feedback is confidentially.
- Conduct an anonymous survey with a common login and password for each company location.
- Employees should not discuss with other employees on whether they participated or what they said to ensure good participation in the future.
- Managers should not speculate on who made a particular comment.
2) Survey Structure
- Conduct an on-line survey for faster results.
- Survey should take less than 15 minutes to complete.
- Questions should be changed very little from year to year and be as standard as possible for better benchmarking. Include an open ended comment.
- Limit demographic questions. A range of years with the company should be sufficient to analyze trends.
- Use a third party to conduct the survey to ensure confidentially. Human Resources consultants are a lower cost alternative to large survey companies
- Invest in benchmarks. Results are best put in perspective with benchmarks from similar company sizes or industries.
3) Results
Congratulations you have your results! This is where the work begins! Now that you have asked for feedback, employees expectations are now higher. Regardless of how positive the results, you must communicate and take action.
- Share results with managers first. Often managers take the feedback very personally, so you want to give them time before presenting to employees.
- Share results with employees ASAP. Thank employees for their valuable feedback. Share comments in summary format rather than individual answers.
- Involve employees with coming up with solutions (i.e. focus groups) and providing clarification on feedback. You can even have them vote.
- Communicate progress on action items frequently at least quarterly, so employees know that you are taking their input seriously.
- Survey again every one to two years to continue your journey of being an even better place to work.
Conducting an employee engagement survey can be a big project, partner with the employee engagement experts.