The Survey Initiative: An Introductory Guide to Employee Research and Employee Surveys.
Aims and objectives
Before embarking on your survey, it is vital to define a set of objectives. Clear objectives linked to the business and its strategy should help to raise enthusiasm for the survey among your key influencers and decision-makers. In this way, improvements resulting from the employee research can ultimately be seen as improving customer service and overall business performance.
Setting up a project steering group including members of the senior management team, managers and employees from across the organisation will help the survey to be seen as a company-wide initiative. Steering group members can advise on aims and objectives, topic list, sample size, questionnaire design, communication and many other matters. They can help work out how best to follow up the survey, disseminate the feedback and action plan. Such groups also help to make the survey more inclusive and effective.
Top tips for conducting employee surveys
- Ask yourself why you are running the survey, think about what you are trying to achieve.
- Communicate the purpose of the survey; an effective communication strategy will help ensure a high level of employee participation.
- Collect meaningful demographic data while ensuring anonymity to give insight and context.
- Ensure each question relates directly to the survey objectives.
- Consult a variety staff about the topics the survey is going to cover, perhaps by forming a steering group that includes a cross section of employees.
- Keep the time required to complete the survey to a minimum (about 10-15 minutes).
- Be open and honest with the results and commit to feeding them back.
- Don’t try to action everything that the survey throws up; pick two or three key items.
- Set targets for improvement and periodically revisit them to ensure that any remedial work you do is having the desired effect.