Employee surveys can be used as an effective employee performance management tool when utilized appropriately. The results of surveys can be used to build new strategies for organizational development.
Employee surveys should be designed in such a way that they drive employees to engage more and have a positive impact on them. Once you know how your employees feel, it will be easier to figure out how to engage them better and obtain employee engagement ideas.
Nowadays, organizations conduct different types of employee surveys, such as engagement surveys, to understand the level of engagement among employees and develop strategies to increase it.
This article will answer questions like, “How to conduct an employee engagement survey?” and “Why are employee surveys important?“. Stay tuned to understand the intricacies of employee surveys.
Here are eight steps to embrace when you conduct employee surveys.
Setting a clear objective is the foundation of any successful employee survey.
Ask yourself: Why is this survey important to the organization? What do we hope to achieve with the results? Having a well-defined goal gives your survey direction and increases the likelihood of getting meaningful responses from employees.
For example, you might conduct a survey to understand employee satisfaction or identify areas where engagement could be improved. If the objective is to gauge overall engagement, frame your questions around how employees feel about their work, team dynamics, and management. Having this clarity ensures that the data you collect is actionable.
Imagine sending out a survey without a clear purpose—you’ll end up with a lot of data, but without knowing what to do with it. A clear objective, on the other hand, keeps everything focused and makes the analysis more effective.
Plus, when employees know the purpose, they’re more motivated to participate, knowing their feedback will lead to improvements that matter.
Once you’ve established a clear objective, the next step is to choose the right survey methodology. This involves deciding how you will collect the feedback. Your choice should be influenced by factors such as the number of participants, ease of distributing the survey, and how easily responses can be gathered and analyzed.
For example, online surveys have become the go-to method for many organizations due to their convenience and efficiency. With platforms like Engagedly, you can quickly design and implement surveys, allowing you to reach a large audience with minimal effort. Online tools also make it easier to analyze data in real time.
There are generally two popular methodologies to consider:
For instance, if you’re conducting a survey to understand the overall satisfaction in a company with hundreds of employees, an online questionnaire can be sent to all staff or to a specific department, depending on your focus.
Once you’ve determined your survey objective and methodology, it’s time to design the questionnaire. This step involves selecting the right topics and questions that align with your goals. The key is to ask clear, relevant questions that gather meaningful insights without causing discomfort or damaging relationships within your workforce.
Focus on crafting positive, constructive questions. Avoid phrasing that might unintentionally encourage criticism of coworkers or the organization.
For example, instead of asking, “What do you dislike about your team?”, reframe it as, “What can we do to improve team collaboration?”
This encourages employees to provide thoughtful, solution-oriented feedback rather than focusing on negativity.
Additionally, it’s a good idea to include questions that may inspire new ideas for improving engagement—things you might not have considered.
For instance, you could ask, “What would make you feel more valued at work?” This open-ended question can reveal unique insights that structured questions might miss.
Depending on your audience, you may need to create multiple versions of the questionnaire for different teams or departments. Once your drafts are ready, validate them through a small pilot group to ensure they are clear and relevant.
Once you are set, it’s important to let your employees know why their participation is crucial. Surveys often fail because people don’t see their value or take them seriously. To avoid this, clearly explain why the survey matters and how their feedback will shape future decisions.
For example, you could send an email that says, “This survey is part of our ongoing effort to improve our workplace. Your honest feedback will help us create a better work environment and make positive changes that directly benefit you. To ensure fairness and confidentiality, we’ve partnered with an independent provider, so please feel free to share your thoughts openly.”
Now that the questionnaire is ready, all you have to do is, get your employees to take the internal employee survey. To get responses across the board, you might have to promote the survey aggressively.
Start by announcing the survey through multiple channels—send an email to all employees, post about it on the company’s internal communication platform, or pin a notice on the office bulletin board. The goal is to make sure everyone knows about it and understands why it’s important.
For example, you could send a message that says, “We’ve launched our employee survey, and your feedback will play a huge role in shaping the future of our workplace. Please take a few minutes to complete it—it’s your opportunity to share your thoughts and help us improve!”
After the survey is conducted, make sure that you communicate the results to your employees. Don’t suppress the results. In fact, your employees deserve to know what the survey says and what the general consensus is.
Consider organizing a short presentation to highlight key insights from the survey. For example, you could say, “Thank you to everyone who participated in the survey! We’ve gathered your feedback and would like to share the main takeaways. Here’s what we learned and how we plan to use this information to improve our workplace.”
Following the presentation, you can open the floor for discussion, allowing employees to ask questions or offer further suggestions. This open dialogue not only builds trust but also encourages ongoing engagement.
After presenting the survey results, make sure that you act on them as discussed with your employees during the presentation. Create a plan of action and a set of goals to be achieved through a staff survey. Also, involve your employees in the plan and assign them responsibilities so that they solve the issues themselves and feel empowered.
Carry out employee surveys at regular intervals. Any survey is of no use if it is conducted once a year or once every two years. You will only know how your employees feel if you make a habit of asking them.
Internal employee surveys are a prominent tool used across industries for various purposes, such as employee experience, engagement, and even issues related to the work environment. It is essential to create a strategy to get the best results out of this method. The discussed steps will help you carry out the survey efficiently.
Have you carried out surveys in your organization? Share your experiences with us in the comments section below!
