The Manager’s Guide To Effective Employee Satisfaction Surveys!

by Srikant Chellappa Feb 14,2019
Engagedly
PODCAST

The People Strategy Leaders Podcast

with Srikant Chellappa, CEO

Gallup reports have revealed that only 33% of the U.S. workforce is engaged, and only 15% of employees worldwide are engaged and according to Gallup, companies that ultimately implemented a process to improve employee engagement have increased their employee engagement rates to at least 75%.

Now that we understand how important employee engagement is in an organization, let’s focus on ways to foster it. Employee satisfaction surveys are one of the very useful ways to collect insights on employee engagement levels in an organization. They can be used as an effective employee performance management tool when utilized appropriately.

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 better engage them and obtaining employee engagement ideas.

Here’s a simple guide for you to get started with employee satisfaction surveys.

Communicate The Agenda

Clarify the purpose of the survey by asking yourself, how this survey can help you accomplish your workplace goals. A clear objective gives your survey a direction and motivates your employees to take it seriously. The point is that, you need to have an absolutely clear objective before you give your employees a survey. A survey without an objective is pointless and has high chances of failure as you will get responses which you will not be able to do much with.

Choose The Right Method

There are different types of surveys, there are also different methodologies to conduct the surveys. The survey methodology depends on few factors like the participants of the survey, ease of distributing the questionnaire, ease of receiving the responses etc.  Online questionnaires are widely used now with tools like Engagedly you can design and implement a survey rapidly. You can choose one of the two methodologies to conduct an employee survey.

Create An Appropriate Questionnaire

Make a list of important topics to be covered in the survey questionnaire. Make sure that any question doesn’t have a negative impact on the relationship of your work staff. Mostly, try to formulate positive questions and avoid typical social norm questions which encourage criticism of their coworkers. You might need to make multiple questionnaires and validate them before you can release the final version.

Talk About The Importance

Communicate the importance of the survey with your employees. Tell them what is it that they gain from taking an employee satisfaction survey. A lot of surveys tend to fail because the people taking them do not take them seriously. In order for your survey to work, you need accurate and honest feedback.

You can also use an employee survey software to administer the survey, to assure your employees of anonymity and fairness. Using a third party provider increases the response rate and provides you with an unbiased end report.

Communicate The Results

After the survey is conducted, communicate the results of their survey to your employees. Don’t suppress the results. In fact, your employees deserve to know what their survey says and what the general consensus is.

You can probably have a short presentation about the results of the survey and then discuss the results with your employees.

Make An Action Plan

After presenting the results, make sure that you act on the results as you discussed with your employees during the presentation. Create a plan of action and a set of goals to be achieved. Also involve your employees in the plan and assign them responsibilities so that they solve the issues themselves and feel empowered.

Create A Culture

Once an employee engagement practice works for your organization, it is important to stick to it. Carry out employee satisfaction surveys at regular intervals of time. Any survey is of no use if it is conducted once in a year or once in two years. You will only know how your employees feel if you make it a habit of asking them. Consider this as a part of the continuous feedback culture that you want to create in your organization.


Do you want to know how Engagedly can help you with employee satisfaction surveys? Request a demo and talk to our experts!


 

Author
Srikant Chellappa
CEO & Co-Founder of Engagedly

Srikant Chellappa is the Co-Founder and CEO at Engagedly and is a passionate entrepreneur and people leader. He is an author, producer/director of 6 feature films, a music album with his band Manchester Underground, and is the host of The People Strategy Leaders Podcast. He is currently working on his next book, Ikigai at the Workplace, which is slated for release in the fall of 2024.

Privacy Preference Center