All around the world, employee disengagement remains the most peculiar issue in corporate culture. Organisations have moved on to cool machine learning algos that can crunch the big data, measure the engagement and predict turnover risk.
A shift in mindset – when you think about employee engagement, the follow-up question is what keeps employees engaged and to find the answer, we need to conduct employee surveys.
In the 21st century, employee surveys aren’t an ancient activity but a modern one. It has become an integrated process with complete end-to-end automation.
For years, HR functions have evolved into high-performance practices, and employee opinions have a significant part in it.
Employee surveys – Is it a good tool or just corporate noise?
Employee surveys are not only a box-ticking HR requirement but a way to understand what motivates the workforce. A Facebook report suggests that abandoning Employee surveys could be a mistake for three major reasons: It gives employees the feeling of being heard, predicts behaviour, and works as a vehicle for changing behaviour.
Therefore, employee surveys become necessary for an organisation to squeeze every bit of valuable data to maximise its usefulness for the company.
But first, let’s find out the meaning of employee surveys;
“An employee survey is a tool or activity that helps understand and measure employees’ perceptions about the company and business in which they work.”
In this guide, we will explain why employee surveys matter, how to design one, the key questions to include, and other dimensions to make your employee surveys successful.
A company that wants to improve its performance must know its work environment.
A tool designed for this purpose is an employee survey, whose purpose is to detect the current perception that employees have about their working conditions.
Today, employee surveys play a crucial role in organisational development more than ever.
Why Employee Surveys Matter
Conducting employee surveys will help you obtain valuable information about all your employees. As a result, you will be able to carry out actions that allow you to improve and increase productivity.
an employee’s motivation translates into productivity and performance.
There is no more real statement than this. If employee engagement in your office is not adequate, it will undoubtedly result in a lack of optimism and energy when carrying out the scheduled activities.
In other words, if your people are comfortable, content, and happy working in a place, they will show efficiency and greater productivity at work.
Tips For Designing Your Next Employee Surveys
Before we begin with the designing part, we are sure you might have this question: Do the employee surveys really work? Let’s speak in numbers.
Recently, Salesforce Research conducted a study on 1500 business professionals.
Workers who feel listened to by their company feel 4.6 times more motivated to offer their best in their performance.
Employee surveys are a way to listen to what employees have to say. So, let’s say that this tool works to the extent that the data it generates is used in practice.
That is why you must consider some key factors when designing and managing it.
There are basic aspects to consider when preparing a survey of this type, such as:
- Keep it short and specific.
- Have quantitative and qualitative questions.
- That the collaborators know why they are asked to participate in it.
Major keys for you to be successful when designing employee surveys:
1. Define clear goals
The first decision to make is: what are you surveying for? The answer can range from explaining how employees perceive leadership, how they feel about the workload, what kind of changes are urgently needed in the facilities. The important thing is to define the limits.
2. Make sure the questions are clear
It is very common to find employee surveys with questions written in difficult language. If the questionnaire is very complex or refers to concepts that people do not know, the information you will obtain will be of very low quality.
3. Use responses to scale
Scaled responses are very helpful in measuring results. Try to work with the same parameters throughout the probe; proposing too many different scales tends to confuse participants.
The HR guide proposes three types of parameters :
- Totally agree, agree, no opinion, disagree, totally disagree.
- All the time, most of the time, sometimes, almost never, never.
- Very satisfied, satisfied, no opinion, dissatisfied, very dissatisfied.
4. Prepare the HR team
Human Resources is the mediator between management, shareholders and employees.
The people management team is in charge of designing and implementing the survey and communicating the results to management and participants. Having the results, you must also ensure that measurable action plans are established.
In summary, for employee surveys to be effective, it is very important that the Human Resources team:
Basic attendance management system must have the following features:
- Set goals for it
- Communicate to those who are in the participation
- Come up with ways to increase participation
- Design the type of questions in a way that keeps the participants interested
- Communicate the results obtained and the action plans that derive from them
Review a selection of those questions that are essential to ask in a questionnaire that measures the environment of your organisation.
Essential Questions That You Must Include In Employee Engagement Surveys
You need to ask questions to understand how they feel about the work and the company. However, any questionnaire does not fulfil this function, so it is necessary to ask a series of questions that effectively analyse the employee workforce’s motivation and engagement.
These questions are as follows:
Q1: How significant is your work?
Employees must feel that the activity and functions they perform in their work have a meaning. This is an excellent way to keep employees motivated and make setting specific goals easy.
In addition, if this issue is analysed, it will be easier to promote the training of the employee workforce.
Q2: Are your opinions important to the rest of your colleagues?
An excellent way to measure the quality of employee engagement is to detect if there are communication problems between employees. Poor communication is often problematic, especially when you ignore a particular colleague.
Thus, any situation in the communicative abilities of the employees can be detected.
Q3: Do you receive adequate feedback from your superiors?
Employee surveys can detect the obstacles in communication between employees and managers.
Managers need to communicate adequately with employees to bridge the communication gap.
Q4: Do you have what you need to be able to carry out your work?
Employees must be able to have all the resources they need to carry out their duties. Thanks to employee surveys, it will be possible to discover if the lack of resources is having a negative effect on the functions of any worker.
This is vital, as this issue affects employee engagement and the work’s quality.
Q5: Can you adequately reconcile personal life and work-life?
To maintain motivation and adequate work performance, it is essential that employees reconcile their work life and personal life and that one does not interfere with the other.
Q6: If a friend were looking for a job, would you recommend your company?
The recommendation is a good indicator. If the worker recommends the company in which he works to his loved ones, this will mean that he is comfortable working in the organisation in question.
Q7: Are you satisfied with your salary?
The salary received by the indicator is the reward for their work. If the employee understands that the pay is insufficient, his performance and motivation will be negatively affected.
In addition to these questions, many more can be asked. However, depending on the answers that have been obtained, the appropriate measures can be taken to eradicate the weaknesses and problems that have been noticed.
Drive The Change With Employee Surveys Results? In Five Easy Steps
When you implement employee surveys, you obtain key information to generate strategies that improve the perception of your collaborators regarding the company.
However, its application and use also represent a great challenge: How to decipher and use this data in your favour?
What to do with the results of the employee surveys?
Since the management will make final use of the results of this measurement, both the quality and the clarity of the information provided are equally important.
The design and application of the most appropriate strategies to improve the company’s performance based on this information should consider these following aspects:
1. Do a critical appraisal
A good survey must meet a quality level for its results to be reliable.
For example, the questions should allow for differences of opinion because when everyone agrees with something, it means that knowledge is already obvious, and a survey is not needed to discover it.
2. Make the report easy to read
Visualisation is key to communicating survey results.
Therefore, the language used and the design must allow discovering the panorama of the organisation from the general to the particular.
3. Communicate results openly
How to present the results, regardless of whether they are negative or positive?
This is a concern for those who prepare and apply these surveys. Therefore, communication has to be agile and practical. The message must also be transparent, direct and frank. Sincerity increases trust and commitment among team members.
4. Invite to analysis
The report must reflect the big picture of the organisation.
In addition, the narrative must allow the generated interest to be maintained, help to relate one piece of information to another and put the indicators at hand so that the management generates new knowledge.
5. Generate action plans
Set a completion period and follow up since forgetfulness is the main enemy in a survey.
If you do not take action after applying employee surveys, the feeling could arise among the collaborators that these questionnaires are only wasting their time.
They are the ultimate goal. Through these strategies, it is determined what is done with the results and at what level. In turn, the results offered by the action plans have to be measurable.
Fortunately, today it is possible to automate the monitoring of action plans through employee engagement software specially designed for it.
In summary, the effectiveness of employee surveys lies in their ability to provide information to generate action. Therefore, make sure that the information is agile, practical and sincere when disclosing these results.
Amplify Your Impact With Employee Engagement Software
To know the degree of employee engagement in your workforce, an employee engagement software. You can choose between a pop up survey and detailed survey that comes in the HROne Inbox after defining the purpose.
HROne allows you to choose who will answer the survey, in which unit it’ll be conducted and whether it is crucial to know the opinion of specific departments of the company.
The survey can be carried out for the entire company, and based on that, it can be proposed to specific departments.
Conducting employee surveys allow the company to show that it cares about its employees and that their opinion matters. It is beneficial to rely on employee engagement software that makes this task easier. Work will become much more agile and versatile to help human resources better use their time when fulfilling these functions.
Conclusion
When a positive attitude is obtained from the employees, it will positively reflect their commitment to the company. This will affect the company’s benefit because satisfied employees are part of the path to success.
Employee engagement surveys begin by establishing your objective, general or more specific. It can be, for example, assessing salary policies in the company, quality of teamwork, work stress, and opportunities for promotion within the company, among others.
The primary key to guaranteeing the success of the surveys is anonymity, and it is the only way to obtain sincere answers.
Once the objective is established, the questionnaire must be prepared. These surveys must be done periodically so that human resources can evaluate the progress of the indicators.