COMMUNICATE THE BENEFITS
Employee surveys give staff the chance to provide anonymous feedback that they might not otherwise share. This feedback gives you the opportunity to improve your culture, processes and any issues which arise. By acting on feedback received from employees you’re showing that you value them.
Ensure you communicate why you run employee surveys. They’re for the benefit of the employees, you want to know what they like, don’t like and what the business could do to improve their work life.
Improve awareness of how and where they can complete a survey, and the benefits of doing so. Run articles in internal magazines, newsletters, email, on your intranet. You could also put posters up, show ads on TVs, and most importantly ask managers to talk to their teams.
The more feedback you receive and act on the better. You’ll improve employee engagement, create a nicer place to work and therefore, improve retention and attract better candidates.
IT’S NOT JUST A BOX TICKING EXERCISE
Fairly often it feels like the annual employee survey only benefits senior management team, not the employees taking the survey. Most of us have worked in various large organisations where you’re almost forced to complete the staff survey. You know department heads are targeted on the number of surveys completed and the results. By offering ongoing employee feedback surveys, you’re showing that you really do want to hear what your employees have to say.
SURVEY DESIGN
Taking a survey shouldn’t be a chore. Your survey should be nicely designed and not too long. Think about the questions – how they’re worded, make sure they’re relevant and not leading. Ask questions that will provide useful data. There’s no point receiving feedback that you can’t act on.
It’s also good practice to include a comments question, so employees can say exactly what they want. It’s very frustrating for respondents to complete a survey but not being able to tell you the one thing that’s really important to them.
ANONYMITY IS REALLY IMPORTANT
Although annual employee surveys are normally anonymous, most employees know it’s not too hard to trace a survey result back to them. If you truly want to receive honest feedback, you need to ensure your surveys are anonymous.
- Remove any tracking from emails and online surveys
- Place survey kiosks away from CCTV and management
- Don’t ask questions to try to identify individuals
REFRESH QUESTIONS
Update questions to keep them interesting and relevant to what’s happening in your business at that point in time.
ENSURE ALL STAFF CAN PROVIDE FEEDBACK
Remember not all employees have a work email or computer, so won’t have access to online surveys. Surveys kiosks enable those staff to provide feedback. They’re also a visible reminder to everyone that they can voice their opinions as often as they like, at their convenience. Having a combination of onsite and online surveys will ensure all employees are able to leave feedback.
IMPROVE YOUR EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION
Speak to Avius about setting up employee satisfaction surveys for your organisation.
By Caroline Hawksworth
