Top 8 Employee Survey Whys and Hows for Getting Them Right

Of late, employee engagement and commitment has become an integral element of employee planning and development for companies. Many firms are interested in knowing what their employees think about the organization and the management.

They want to know how committed their employees are to the company. After all, this will help determine the firm’s future goals and objectives. The only way to understand this is by conducting employee surveys. An employee engagement survey will let you know the level of engagement among the workforce and their commitment to the company.

Why is an employee survey important?

1. Creates a transparent communication stream with the workforce

When you decide to conduct employee surveys, you communicate a positive message to your workforce. It shows them that their inputs matter and their opinions are valued by the company.

An employee survey is a way to boost engagement among and with your employees and to understand what they think about the company. Moreover, this type of survey is more beneficial to your employees, as it provides them with a platform to express their views about the company and the workplace. And the fact that you are seeking their feedback further boosts their engagement levels with your company.

2. Assesses the values of the organization

The values of the organization become more effective only when your employees agree with them. The only way to know whether the organizational values are ingrained in your workforce is by conducting employee satisfaction surveys.

When the employees of a company agree with the core values of the company, they follow it in their daily work. This reflects in their overall productivity at the workplace. For every successful organization, their employees must follow the core values of the company in every sphere of their work life.

A tailor-made employee engagement survey will allow you to determine the level of affinity of your employees towards your organizational values. It will allow you to identify the gaps as well as the effective ways to communicate the values to the employees.

3. Provides valuable insights and data

A successful employee satisfaction survey will allow you access to invaluable insights and data. For instance, you will come to know how many workers feel stressed at work, or feel that there is too much pressure at work. You will also become aware of the number of employees suffering from underlying health conditions. These surveys will also reveal to you about those individuals with lower levels of commitment or engagement with the company and those who are keen to seek better career opportunities with different companies.

This wealth of data allows you direct access into the psyche of your employees. It helps you detect the core issue plaguing the performance of your employees at work and the best steps you can implement to change the perception of your employees towards your company and boost their level of engagement with the company.

4. Gives you a view of the current status of the organization

Detailed employee surveys show the current status of your organization. It tells you what the employees think about the company. The invaluable data gathered from the survey will let you understand the positive and pain areas of the company, which need extra attention.

This will help you segregate and allocate your resources efficiently to solve the problem and turn the negative areas into top-performing positive instruments of the company. Such insights are necessary for the positive growth and development of the organization. After all, your employee is your true asset and employee surveys allow you a peek into their current views and mental state about the organization.

5. Highlights the challenges and successes

The employee survey allows you to identify the successes as well as the challenges of the organization. This data allows you to develop concrete measures to effectively solve the challenges and keep the employees motivated throughout the transition process to ensure the successes do not get affected by the challenges faced by the company.

As an employer, it is important for you to regularly identify the challenges faced by the employees and the organization as a whole. And nothing helps you with better insights and data than a comprehensive employee engagement survey.

6. Compares your company with the market

The employee survey does not just help you with insightful data, it also allows you to compare your data with the industry benchmark to analyse how your company fares compared to others. A healthy comparison is important for a company’s positive growth and development. And, such a comparison will allow you to understand your shortcomings and learn from the best practices of your competitors.

Compressing the employee survey data allows you to create actionable insights on the acquired data. This allows you to determine where and when you must take action to reap the best rewards. It further allows you to funnel down your approach and only focus on the areas of utmost importance to your employees and the company.

7. Improves the performance of the organization

As discussed in the pointers above, employee surveys help to find out the challenges faced by the employees and the business. These challenges pose an opportunity for the company to detect the issue before it escalates into a major problem and try to find unique solutions without hampering the overall morale of the employees.

These challenges, when solved effectively, usher in a positive atmosphere at work. The workers feel wanted and accepted by the company, boosting engagement levels among the employees, which ultimately results in their improved efficiency and productivity. This improvement eventually increases the overall productivity and performance of the organization.

8. Help identify long term objectives

The employee engagement survey allows you to identify the trends, which will continue for the long term. This allows you to plan effective long term goals for the company. These surveys provide in-depth data about the attitude and insight on employee engagement and commitment towards the company. It will help you understand where you stand in your industry.

This performance will help you plan your long term goals for the betterment of the company as a whole.

How to undertake an effective employee survey?

1. Preparation

The first step is to prepare for the survey. This means that before you take the survey to your employees, you need to identify and understand its true purpose. In other words, what is the core objective of the employee survey? Therefore, you must first determine the objective or goal of the survey.

Once you have identified the goal, you must determine the appropriate method of conducting the survey. The right method is one that garners the most responses without disturbing the normal routine of the employees. Finally, design the questionnaire to receive the desired response from the employees.

2. Communication

The next important step in the process is communication. The success of the survey depends on how well and effectively you communicate the objective and the benefits of the employee survey to your employees. Your employees should feel involved in the survey, only then will they provide their honest and best responses.

Create a proper project plan to effectively communicate the survey to your employees. Determine the following:

• • What you want to communicate
  • To whom you want to communicate
  • How do you want to communicate
  • And, when do you want to communicate

This will help you design and distribute proper communication collaterals and materials that would attract immediate attention from the employees.

3. Implementation

After you have planned and communicated about your survey to your employees, the next step is to effectively implement the employee survey. This starts with distributing the questionnaire to employees. Do this in phases if you have a large workforce; it will ensure proper implementation of the survey and you will receive appropriate feedback.

It is important to give time to your employees to respond. Let them think about the questions and give their thoughtful and appropriate feedback. Remember that the goal of the survey is to receive as much feedback from the employees as possible.

4. Analysis

Once you collect the data from your employees, do an in-depth analysis. Set an industry benchmark to help you better analyse the data to bring out actionable insights. A thorough analysis of the data will allow you to find the challenges, which will further help you set the right priorities to boost employee engagement with the company.

Also, detailed data analysis will help you identify the trends and patterns. These trends will allow you to do the right long term planning for your business.

5. Action planning

Plan your action based on the actionable insights that you identify from the survey. The ultimate objective should be to successfully implement the plans into the daily activities of your employees.

Proper internal communication with your workforce allows you to successfully implement your plan among the workforce. Monitor the positive outcome of the plan’s successful implementation. Stick to the positives and work on the areas of improvement. Check out where your plan needs modifications or adjustments. Once you are satisfied with the results, you can conduct the survey once again to check the changes in the employee response.

Employee surveys should be an integral and mandatory aspect of an organization’s operations. After all, it allows companies to understand the attachment of their employees towards the company. This survey is greatly beneficial in the overall growth and development of the company.