Best Practices for your Employee Engagement Surveys

Catherine Maheux-Rochette

March 25 2021

Stories

With new generations shaking up the world of work as we know it and the generalized shortage of manpower in Canada, any organization that wishes to stand out and position itself as an employer of choice must listen to its employees. Employee satisfaction surveys are an excellent tool for dialogue between managers and their teams. By helping employers gather valuable information to assist them in their business decisions, they are true catalysts for change. Today, workplace surveys are not only beneficial, they are essential. Now, how do you survey employees to get representative results?

Here are the top 10 best practices for a successful implementation of a work climate survey in your organization!

1. Consider your motivations

The first step—and one of the most important—is to question your motives. Why do you want to survey your employees? Are there specific issues you want to address? Do you simply want to take the pulse of your organization? In all cases, it is important to have the commitment of management before undertaking your steps and make sure that they clearly understand the main objective of the survey.

Defining a goal is crucial to guide you in your efforts and to help you choose the right type of workplace assessment questionnaire in order to obtain results that will have real added value for your organization.

2. Have a plan!

When it comes to conducting an engagement survey in a company, the importance of timing is often overlooked, but Marie-Josée insists on reminding us that it is crucial to take into account what is happening in the organization and to act at the right time. For example, if several employees are working on a large project that has a significant impact on the organization, it may not be the right time. The results of a survey often imply changes, and therefore good change management, so it is important to ensure that the necessary resources are available.

3. Communicate and be transparent

A good communication strategy (before, during and after the survey) is also essential. It is important to involve your employees in your process and to communicate clearly the reasons why you are surveying them. Is it because you are thinking of expanding your office, or because you feel there is tension in the team? When in doubt, always be transparent!

4. Ask questions that are relevant, easy to understand and unbiased

The questions in your satisfaction or engagement survey must all be very clear, concise and completely objective. Including questions that are not impartial in the survey will bias the survey and you will get unrepresentative results. For example, it is not recommended that you ask employees if they would like the company to pay for all of their group insurance, as it is obvious that almost everyone would say yes. If you want to survey your employees on this subject, to do so objectively, you could ask them the following question: Are you satisfied with your employer’s contribution to your group insurance plan?

5. Keep it anonymous at all stages

Anonymity is an essential criterion for the success of your engagement questionnaire and it is important to mention it to employees. Indeed, the fear of being identified could discourage some individuals from answering the survey truthfully. It is also essential that all questions be composed in a way that does not compromise the confidentiality of the results. Here are some examples of questions that would not be appropriate for your employee satisfaction survey:

What department do you work in?
When were you hired?
Who is your supervisor?

6. Limit the length of your survey

Your employees are probably very busy and if you want to keep their attention, your questionnaire should be completed in 15 minutes or less. Also pay attention to the length of the questions individually: it is best to keep them short and concise.

7. Assess the results and analyze your work environment

Once you have collected your employees’ responses and compiled the results, your work is far from over. Interpreting the results is—another one!—of the most important steps. You must take the time to analyze and assimilate the responses in order to understand the dynamics of your organizational climate and to identify the major trends before moving on to develop your action plan. It is also recommended that you consult the studies available online to compare your results with those of other companies in your industry.

You may also want to use a third-party organization. Indeed, you have everything to gain by entrusting this task to experts: you will get advice based on unbiased points of view that will not be tainted by your company’s reality and you will have access to tools that have already been tried and tested.

8. Share the results with the organization

Once you have analyzed and interpreted the results and ensured that the information is constructive, just as you have been transparent in communicating your motivations for surveying employees, you must be transparent in sharing the results with the entire organization (managers and employees). Bring your teams together and present the results to them to engage them in discussion, which may give you some ideas for your intervention.

9. Be prepared and make the right choices

A good intervention plan following a workplace survey takes into account the following elements:

Your corporate culture
Your mission and values
Your employees

In fact, it is essential that your intervention be aligned with your company’s culture to ensure better ownership of the ensuing change by employees.

Here’s a concrete example: The results of your organizational climate diagnosis show that the members of your sales team are demotivated and you’re thinking about solutions to remedy the situation. Knowing that collaboration and teamwork are an integral part of your corporate culture and that you value these values, do you think that offering large bonuses on individual sales would be an appropriate intervention?

At the same time, if you value authenticity and open communication on a daily basis, it would be natural to ask for and provide feedback to employees throughout the implementation of the action plan.

10. Take action to improve the workplace atmosphere!

If you made the decision to survey your employees, it was probably to gather information that could help you make decisions that are relevant to their needs and expectations. That’s why it’s important to develop an action plan that takes into account your employees’ responses. They must feel that their participation has been useful. You need to ensure that the results you get from the survey are translated into positive, incremental changes. Implementing small, simple and quick actions to start will help you gain the trust of your employees.

It is also important to evaluate the impact of your interventions on your work climate throughout the process. If they are not effective, you may need to review your action plan.

Would you like to be accompanied by an expert to implement a work climate survey in your organization? Click here to schedule an appointment!

To get an overview of our solution with integrated engagement survey, request your free demo today!