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Step by step employee surveys

An employee survey can vary from a thorough systematic study of the attitudes of your employees towards all aspects of their employment, or may focus on particular aspects on which you require feedback, either because you suspect there is a problem or because you are contemplating some change.

As the importance of staff motivation on the bottom line is increasingly appreciated, such surveys are becoming more common as they can be an excellent way of gauging the opinions and level of satisfaction of your employees. By working with your employees to make targeted improvements, you will help to improve morale and productivity whilst reducing the risk of losing good employees. It is advised that you run a survey once every year or so, and compare your results to review progress.

Our guide takes you through the essential steps to judging employee satisfaction.

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The main advantages to surveys can be summarised below. Identify which are appropriate to you, and what your aims are so that you can focus on meeting these.

Surveys can:

  • provide you with a useful organisational healthcheck to identify problem areas
  • help you to address specific issues, some of which you may already be aware, but they can also give you the evidence to address these and the information you need in order to do so
  • provide evidence for changes in policy and practice
  • provide a forum for suggestions, which are often detailed and usually practical
  • be an internal marketing exercise
  • be a useful tool for raising awareness
  • help to avoid burying your head in the sand by pretending issues don't exist or ignoring these. (And once committed to raising the issues, it is vital that you take action on them!)
  • identify areas for organisational development. By defining the organisation's strengths and weaknesses as perceived by the employees, they can show which strengths to build on and weaknesses to support. Surveys can also help to detect training needs and obstacles hindering improved performance.
  • help staff to feel valued. By demonstrating concern and respect for your employees and their views, the psychological contract Logged in members only. will become or remain healthy. Morale can be given a real boost if staff perceive effort is taken into seeking and acting on their feedback.
  • test other communication devices within the business
  • provide a benchmark against which to measure improvement
  • uncover grievances whose existence was unknown to senior management. Even if nothing can be done to alleviate these, it may improve matters simply by explaining the reasons for things being the way they are.
  • provide a useful safety valve by providing the chance to release pent up feelings
  • help prioritise issues. Sometimes very minor changes may bring major improvements in terms of staff perception; the survey enables you to see what they feel is important.
  • If changes are going to be made, employees are more likely to accept these if they feel that they have had a say in advance.

Check our template employee satisfaction survey and tailor the statements to meet your needs. You may wish to add some questions that are of particular importance to you eg 'our staff magazine is useful and informative.' The rule is: only ask a question if you can take action in response to the replies.

Note that surveys can:

  • raise expectations with a resultant negative effect on morale if staff feel that they spent time and effort replying but no-one listened/accepted their views. There is no point in raising expectations unless you are prepared to try to fulfil these. So never include issues on which you are not prepared to take action and ensure that you feed back responses and explain actions (even if the action is to do nothing).
  • take a lot of time if done internally.
  • provide discontented staff with an opportunity to 'have a go' at senior management.
  • become a millstone - ie you commit to it annually but nothing has changed. It also becomes very clear to staff if no action has been taken and you can no longer use the excuse that you didn't know!
  • be seen by some managers as a threat if they feel insecure. Will the information be used against them?

All of the above pitfalls can be managed and are really only excuses from those who don't want to bother, they don't affect the validity of doing the exercise! So consider whether any of these may apply to your organisation and the action you will take to overcome them

In order to get a meaningful response, you must stress a guarantee of anonymity, confidentiality and non-attribution. Without trust you will not uncover the perceptions you need to be aware of.

Distribute the survey to all employees, explaining why you are asking them to complete it. You may wish to tailor and use our covering letter Logged in members only..

Ensure that you set realistic expectations - improvements won't be made overnight in every area. The information will be used to see where there are opportunities to continually improve the way in which you do things. Stress that the information will be treated as confidential and that the survey is anonymous.

Collect the responses and calculate two things:

  1. The response rate.
    This is the percentage of your employees who completed the survey and is a good indication of the level of confidence in the process.
  2. The satisfaction rating for each question and for the survey as a whole:
    Satisfaction rating = number of responses 'satisfied' or 'very satisfied' x 100
      total number of responses

Look at the lowest scores and put together an action plan to address these. You may wish to include your employees in this process. Get a group of them together and ask them to look at the results and propose some practical improvement ideas.

Communicate the survey results and the proposed action plan to your employees. Celebrate any excellent scores by announcing them and giving thanks to any particular parties that have contributed to these positive responses.

Finally, be sure to carry through! If people give up their time to complete a survey they can reasonably expect:

  • to be given feedback on the results and
  • to see a positive plan of action to address some of the key issues.

Re-run the survey every 6 or 12 months to track and monitor progress.

  • The communication of the survey is important. Don't raise unrealistic expectations.
  • When finalising the survey questions, ask some of your employees what they think, this not only involves them in the process but it also helps you to get the most meaningful set of questions.
  • Remember that your employees will only have confidence in the survey if you:
    • do it regularly
    • share the results.
    • demonstrate some improvement actions.
  • Here are a few action plan ideas:

    COMMUNICATION
    • Introduce regular team briefings, to keep your employees up to date.
    • Introduce a suggestion scheme to get ideas on how the business could be improved. Reward the good ones.
    • Train your managers.
    • Use the notice boards and other forms of internal communication to let people know what's happening.
    • At the end of team meetings, ask the participants to review the meeting - how could it have been improved?
    • Set up focus groups or task forces - small teams of people who tackle certain projects for you.
    REWARD AND RECOGNITION
    • Benchmark rates of pay with other companies who compete in the same labour market. Make adjustments, if you are behind the market and can afford to do so.
    • Ensure that your employees recognise the value of their total package (bonus opportunities, health cover, sick pay etc) not just basic pay.
    • Encourage your employees to contribute to the success of the business. Ask for their opinions and suggestions.
    • Encourage your line managers to 'catch people doing things right' and give positive feedback when people do things well.
    TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
    • Review your approach to induction.
    • Review your approach to training and development.
    • Train your managers to more effectively train, coach and develop their teams.
    • Ensure that your appraisal system is in place and working well.
    JOB SATISFACTION
    • Review your approach to health and safety. Nominate someone to co-ordinate health and safety issues and suggestions.
    • Look at how the environment could be improved. Better still, ask your employees to come up with some practical suggestions. Let them know whether or not they have a budget, if so, how much.
    • Discuss the results of the general questions such as 'your job is fulfilling' with your team to see how improvements could be made.

If you wish to undertake a bespoke survey, we can help you with this, by assisting in the design and structure of the questions, collecting and collating the responses and providing anonymous feedback via a structured report. If you would be interested in this service, please call us on 0845 458 0563 for further details.

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