What is one best practice for employee satisfaction surveys?
To help you implement employee satisfaction surveys, we asked HR leaders and small business owners this question for their best advice. From avoiding open-ended questions to acting on the results, there are several insights that may help you carry out employee satisfaction surveys in your business.
Here are eight best practices for employee satisfaction surveys:
- Avoid Open-Ended Questions
- Use Anonymous Surveys
- Provide Adequate Time and Space to Express Feelings
- Run Employee Satisfaction Surveys Quarterly
- Have a Clear Objective
- Stick to Short Surveys
- Avoid Neutral Responses
- Act On the Results
Avoid Open-Ended Questions
Unless you have a valid reason for asking such questions, it would be better to avoid open-ended questions. When working for a large enterprise, assessing a higher number of open-ended questions can make your life highly difficult. It will make the quality of the employee satisfaction survey data poor as it’s more to be wordy and inconsistent. In case you have to ask such questions, limit the number to one focused on their suggestions. This is how you can isolate the essential quantitative data and the additional insights from your employees, which you can filter out in your assessment.
Caroline Lee, CocoSign
Use Anonymous Surveys
Using an anonymous employee satisfaction survey can help employees feel comfortable opening up about issues they are facing. This can help small problems get resolved before they escalate into bigger problems. Being able to anonymously submit their problems for leadership to review can help them feel like their voice is heard without worrying about reprisal. If employees feel that their issues will be taken seriously, they will be more likely to voice their concerns rather than suffering in silence or leaving the company.
Maegan Griffin, Skin Pharm
Provide Adequate Time and Space to Express Feelings
Providing space for additional expression in satisfaction surveys is something many HR pros forget about, yet it opens up so many opportunities! By providing that space, I mean constructing the survey in such a way that people can add their commentary whenever they feel the need to do so and giving them enough time to complete it peacefully. I understand that HR departments want to evaluate the process as soon as possible, but giving employees just a day or two is not enough. At the end of the day, there will be a vast amount of information they’ll miss because of giving a too-short deadline. The same thing happens when there’s no possibility of adding comments – employees may want to add something valuable, and it’s worth taking a while to review it.
Bartek Boniecki, passport-photo online
Run Employee Satisfaction Surveys Quarterly
Many companies have an annual employee satisfaction survey, but should seek feedback more often. Ideally, companies run employee satisfaction surveys quarterly so they have a consistent pulse on what’s happening within the organization. Too many things change within a year: friends quit, layoffs happen, office snacks change, strategies adjust, etc. All of those changes impact how team members feel and you need to know how satisfaction is changing as often as possible.
Logan Mallory, Motivosity
Have a Clear Objective
Make sure there’s a clear objective behind the employee satisfaction survey. These questions should evaluate an employee’s satisfaction level as well as their motivation. Questions could include if they prefer the virtual office or an in-person setup, for example. In doing so, it improves employee retention and decreases turnover later down the road.
Jodi Neuhauser, Ovaterra
Stick to Short Surveys
The length of your survey plays a relevant role in employee response rate. Therefore, prefer a short survey that takes 5-10 minutes, not more. Filling in the survey is extremely important, but it should not take too long. It is necessary to note that this is a very significant part of the process, and that won’t take up much of their time. Finally, surveys must contain few questions, be clear and precise, without vagueness.
Chiara Sternardi, Passport-photo.online
Avoid Neutral Responses
One of the best practices for employee satisfaction surveys is to avoid neutral responses. How can that be done? Ensure a 4-point scale versus a 5-point scale. Neutral responses don’t provide enough data to make actionable progress. After all, the purpose of the employee satisfaction survey is not just to provide a forum to hear out employees, but just as critical to take action towards a more connected, safe, engaged, and empowered workplace.
Chelsea C. Williams, Reimagine Talent Co.
Act On the Results
There’s no faster way to create an unengaged workforce than by asking employees to spend the effort and energy carefully crafting their honest opinion about their employer only to have that opinion tossed aside and never acted upon. Doing so is probably worse than never conducting an employee survey at all. Conducting the survey is only the first step in a months-long internal communication campaign. Communicate to employees a summary of the survey results, communicate to employees the plan of action and communicate to employees once the plan is in place. No detail is too small to communicate to your team on the efforts expended to act upon their feedback. Doing so will build trust in ways never before seen at all levels of the organization.
Chris McKinney, Sprint Mart
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