Are You Taking Employee Survey Feedback to Heart?

Put a plan in place before sending out a survey

I know a number of companies who send out employee feedback surveys at least once a year; sometimes more. However, what happens to that information? The surveys are certainly easy enough to send out; the problem is looking at and using the data we receive back. I tell clients that employee surveys are worth doing if they are going to do something with the data. If you are just sending it out and don’t have a follow up plan, don’t bother. Nothing annoys and frustrates employees more than wasting their time filling out a survey that the organization doesn’t really care about.

Before you send out that employee survey to gather feedback from employees on how engaged they are in their roles and to understand what they need to be successful – take these best practice steps:

1. Determine what you want to know. For example, do employees seem less excited about the job than they used to?  Is there an increase in turnover?  Have you heard lots of complaints from employees lately?
2. Why do you want to know this information? Is it impacting performance overall? Is it impacting get products and services out to market? Are customers complaining?
3. Are you prepared to act? What will you do when you get this information? For example, are you prepared to take action to reduce the increase in turnover? Are you prepared to address the situation if employees are less excited about their job because of they are feeling overworked and underappreciated?

While certainly you may not know the specific issues that you will need to act upon, you need to know that you can and will act upon issues that arise. Certainly some may take longer to resolve than others, but you need to know you will put a plan in place to address what comes up in the employee survey. I will tell you that every client I have worked with pretty much knows what is going to come up in the survey; they usually have a fairly good idea what the issues are that are impacting employees. The survey is used to validate that information and to learn what else may be impacting employees’ ability to be successful within the company.

4. Have you prepared your communication plan about the employee survey? Don’t simply send out the survey without providing some background information. Give employees a “heads up” that the survey is coming, how long they will have to complete it and why they are being asked to take the survey. If data will remain confidential, make sure they know that (and this is especially important in companies where employees feel like there will be retribution for being honest). In such situations, consider an outside vendor to manage the survey for you.
5. Once the survey is sent out and you have gathered your data; summarize it for all to see. Send around the summarized data, thanking employees for participating and sharing your plan for how you will be moving forward.
6. Set up regular communication about progress toward working through the issues that arose in the employee survey. Provide updates to employees on a regular basis – it may be monthly or bi-monthly.  When a “fix” has been made, follow up to ensure that the fix is working and has resolved the issue. Keep employees engaged in the process from start to finish.

Consider pulling together a team to address issues that have been identified in the survey.  Be sure to provide the team with the resources, time and support needed to be successful. For example, if an issue that arises in that employees feel they are not well versed on the strategy and vision of the company, pull together a team to include employees and managers to work together to develop a plan for how the organization might better communicate vision and strategy throughout the company.

Fixing past mistakes

If you have done employee surveys in the past and have not done anything with the data, you want to be sure to have a clear plan this time around. It doesn’t take much inactivity and unresponsiveness on management’s part before employees just don’t care anymore and will assume the company does not either. I have always found it helpful to apologize for past inaction and clearly outline how you will follow up with the results of a new employee survey.

Get employees involved

For larger organizations, ask employees to join the process and help out! Often employees are looking to engage within the organization and to expand their own skills. What better way than taking the lead on conducting an employee survey? It enables employees to get to know others in the organization that they may not otherwise get to know, to work with co-workers from other departments and to learn how to work on a project team.

Remember that sometimes the information we learn from an employee survey is not always easy to hear. As a manager, we may not be performing in a way that works for our employees. As a company, we may have been through a rough patch and put on employees second as we worked through financial issues. We may be so engrossed in beating out the competition by getting products out to market quicker that we forget that we are overwhelming our employees with impossible deadlines. These things happen. No company is perfect. But, when you reach out and acknowledge that you have problems to be fixed and ask employees for their feedback to be sure you address the problem in a way that works for them and the company, you are heading in the right direction and your employees will notice.

Follow these simple best practices and you’ll find that employees will willingly provide feedback regularly, not just when you formally ask for it via a survey. And after all, isn’t that what we want? Employees who are engaged and willing to identify issues to be worked through before they get frustrated and walk out the door.