How can you get better year-on-year improvements from your employee survey, particularly during times of great change? Here are some simple steps that you can take to get the best possible return on investment from this critical initiative.
A well-managed employee opinion survey process is arguably the single most powerful organisational improvement initiative available. According to our research, more than 70% of organisations with 300+ employees currently use a staff survey of some description.
The opportunity and promise of a good survey process is clear to most organisations. Most senior leaders will acknowledge that:
- It can significantly reduce unwanted talent attrition
- It can help attract the best and brightest in your industry
- It can improve leadership at all levels
- It can help improve employee engagement and commitment
- It can reinforce and strengthen organisational alignment and focus
- It can deepen customer and stakeholder relationships
Adding to that, a staff survey can also improve employee productivity and overall organisational profitability and performance.
With this in mind, why do so many organisations park their staff survey process in times of crisis?
Well, we recently asked some senior managers from more than 10 organisations (ranging from 55 - 3,500 employees) across a variety of sectors what they thought, and this what they said:
- In times of change, the management team tends to be wary or afraid of receiving negative feedback.
- There tends to be so many issues in a crisis, the consensus among management is that we don't need to add more fuel to the fire.
- In times such as an economic downturn, the focus turns to managing revenue and not people.
- The common complaint? When we do run a survey, "Nothing ever happens anyway".
So, is a staff survey really a tool that can be used to improve employee productivity and overall organisational profitability and performance? If so, how?
Steps for improvement
The survey process should be considered in two integrated and seamless parts within each survey cycle.
Part 1 is concerned with everything that happens pre-survey closure. Part 2 is concerned with everything that happens post survey closure, and before you engage employees in the next survey.
Pre-survey closure steps to improve survey performance
This is the data collection phase. There are a few things you can do to help collect the best possible data and build the platform for post survey closure success - which is where the real benefits come about. They are:
- Make sure you are asking the day-to-day questions that matter to all employees - not just the senior executive - All constituents need to be catered for. Our database research suggests that well over 75% of an employee's attitude (to their employer) is driven by local, team specific issues. The message is this: Your employees are likely to be less concerned about the latest acquisition being planned by the Board than they are about how they can work better with their customers (both internal and external).
- Set up your demographic questions - So that you can provide data to team leaders pertaining to their team's issues. Leaders want to know what their team is really thinking. If the demographics (questions relating to title, location, gender etc.) are too broad, then many leaders running small teams will not be able to use the data to work with their teams to make a difference. Each team must have their own team's data.
- When launching your survey, clearly communicate the purpose to all employees - When and how the results will be made available to all teams, their leaders and other next steps. Employees want to know what will happen after the survey data is collected. For too many employees, they don't see anything happening after the survey closes, or if it does, the actions are so high-level and removed from their issues, that they are not really interested in them.
Post-survey closure steps to improve survey performance
Through no fault of even the most passionate supporters within an organisation, this is often the part where survey momentum falls away. It is however, the most important part of the survey process.
Obviously an organisation can collect the best data in the world, but if it is not made widely available to leaders and their teams at all levels for them to analyse and action, the data collection actually offers very little bottom-line benefit.
Whilst clearly all survey processes are different, a typical post survey process might be as follows:
- Report tabled by survey provider highlighting key issues and suggested actions
- Run a series of focus groups
- Implement agreed actions
- A request to business leaders to develop and implement team-based improvement plans
The problems with this approach:
- It is top-down and not bottom-up
- It is high-level and often misses the day-to-day details that make a real difference
- It fails to engage all employees
- It can be very expensive - consultants tend to cost a lot of money
- It doesn't necessarily build internal capability and capacity
- It is externally led rather being driven from within
- It relies heavily on HR to resource this process - particularly for larger organisations, this is simply not possible
- It is often inconsistent, with some leaders following through and some not
As a result, the survey process falls away - it doesn't build a bottom up continuous improvement culture, or a consistency of best practice, or provide the leaders with the tools and data they need to lead most effectively.
Building a learning culture through active engagement
- Move fast after survey closure - keep the momentum going - don't' suffer from survey lag
- Distribute organisation-wide and team-specific data to all leaders as fast as possible after survey closure - if possible within 2 - 3 weeks
- Provide leaders with an easy to use and standardised process for data analysis and action planning
- Set up a clear governance structure to manage the process, oversee progress and deal with barriers - keep this simple and time efficient - no more than 2 hours per month
- Ensure the most senior person available Chairs this committee (CEO, HR Director, Organisational capability director etc.)
- Capture actions and priorities from the bottom up, before agreeing on high-level actions. The survey might, for example, give low scores to employee training. This can mean different things to different people from different teams. The response to this low score needs to be tailored to the specific needs of each team - you need to hear from them first before you start actioning this issue
- Quickly communicate successes and progress back to the organisation
- Install a feedback loop to ensure these actions are well received by the employees - you may have misunderstood their needs or priorities or miss-formulated the action
- Encourage and reward success and link to performance management systems
- Deal quickly with barriers - missed deadlines etc.
- Frequently carry out small, targeted pulse checks - you don't have to wait for an entire year (if that is your survey cycle) before finding out whether you are making progress.
Creating internal capability is the first step to building a learning culture (from adversity to innovation) within your organisation or institution. Your staff will become engaged in the process itself and engagement will grow as a result of this inclusive approach. It is well known and documented that staff engagement leads to better productivity and profitability. This is never more true or required than in times of crisis and change.