A well-thought-out survey can help businesses discover employee insights fast and efficiently. These insights can then be used by management to improve the organizational culture. But what makes a truly effective employee survey? Let’s dig a little deeper.
The business world has evolved from the age of computing to the age of data. Collecting employee data can help to analyze and understand personas and employee behavior better. Understanding those who work for you can help you provide the right environment for them to be as productive as possible, thereby benefiting the business and its ROI.
#1 Reinforce and safeguard product/projects from risks
When executed in the right way, surveys can help to minimize new product risks by producing insight into the employee perceptions of the product and expose their intentions behind doing their part of developing the product the way they did. It can also showcase what they believe customer insights to be, which can then be matched against what the company believes the customer demand and preferences are. This allows management to make sure that employees, customers, and market insights are aligned. Products and projects can be developed, marketed, and distributed in the most optimal way. When all this is not taken into consideration, poorly made decisions can severely obstruct an organization’s growth. Surveys for this purpose are designed to get employees to communicate their thoughts as clearly as possible. Think through the different options for survey answer formats. While multiple-choice responses can still be done, it is a good idea to not try and fit responses into preset answers for employees to choose from but to do the opposite. Open-ended questions can allow employees to express their thoughts in their own words so that you capture the emotion and reasoning behind what they are saying. This helps management get the right and in-depth insights they need.
#2 Quantify employee engagement
The main reason businesses conduct surveys within the organization is to gauge employee engagement levels. Surveys will help you compute employee sentiment in terms of every activity, policy, event, or initiative that the company undertakes. While the standards for assessment are different for every organization, there are some common ones that help to get the overall impression of employee engagement on an individual and collective level. Conduct surveys on job benefits and policies, terms of recognition and recognizing fellow employees, training and skill improvement, work environment, promotions, and opportunities.
Employee surveys for this purpose must not stick to one format. Opt for a combination of various inputs like multiple choice questions, questions that allow them to type in their responses, and a rating system (rating 0-10) that helps you collect a more quantifiable response. In order to get more well-informed responses, give employees more information about the topic in question so that the employees have all the information they need. Do this by adding informative videos and audio clips that give bursts of the right information in short spans of time so that employees don’t lose interest or focus when taking the survey.
#3 Guide company growth
This reason is two-fold. An effective survey will not only help you quantify specific areas of employee satisfaction and sentiment but will also help you see if employees are in line with the company’s objective and growth goals. Management and leadership are able to reframe organizational objectives that may prove to be more beneficial for the business. On the flip side, they can conduct activities, training programs, or change policies to help employees realign with their original objectives. Surveys of this nature are designed to be department specific to get better clarity on each specific aspect of the company. This also maintains the transparency of the procedures of each department. Additionally, data collected from surveys can help to narrow down which departments need to improve and which departments are excelling. Use insights and best practices from the excelling departments in other departments to help boost progress. Employee engagement survey data can help gather actionable data that can be executed company-wide. Surveys of this nature often include options where employees can tick multiple checkboxes, allowing them to give a more varied and conclusive answer. Another great feature allows employees to upload their own documents as a response thereby giving employees the chance to voice their opinion and show their work or work suggestions to higher management. This can also give management the best avenue to collect great ideas and execute them. It’s a win-win situation.
#4 Allow employees to voice their opinion
The most crucial aspect of an employee engagement survey is to give employees a voice. By giving them this platform you pave the way for two-way communication that is productive for employees and management. The best way a company can progress is by involving its employees in the development, planning, and execution processes. By showing them that their opinions are valued employees realize that they are just as valuable and equal stakeholders in the company giving them even more incentive to do their best, work as a community to achieve a common goal, and supercharge productivity.
As a business, employee surveys help you collect data and track progress. It is now a best practice for companies to outline benchmarks during Q1 of the year and track progress throughout the year. Data is then compared with other metrics such as profits and ROI to see if their efforts are targeted at the right things and if they are effective.
