The Beginner’s Guide to Launching an Employee Survey

Creating a survey communication plan that gets more responses

Are you ready to launch your survey?

Imagine this scenario: After weeks or even months of preparation, your employee survey is finally ready. You click the send button on your introduction email and then...crickets.

It sounds like a nightmare scenario. But all too often, employees just don’t respond the way we’d hope.

For most organizations, the average employee survey participation rate is just 30% to 40%. And that’s a serious problem. 

Lower response rates often lead to less reliable results. You won’t be able to gain as much insight from your results, making it that much more difficult to create a strong response strategy.

What does it take to get a good survey response rate?

So how do you ensure you get the response rate you need? 

There are a lot of factors that play into whether your employees respond to your survey. 

The key to a successful survey is part design and part communication.

Designing your workplace survey

Before you introduce your employees to surveys, make sure it’s easy for your employees to take and will get you the data you need. 

That means:

• Determining the goal of your survey and what you want to measure
• Setting the right frequency 
• Asking the right questions
• Using a survey tool that makes survey taking easy and provides in-depth insights

Creating an employee survey communications plan

Once you’ve done the legwork and all systems are go, it’s time to create a survey communications plan to engage your employees and promote your survey. How well you are able to communicate your survey will determine how successful it will be. 

As you create your communications plan, make sure you identify:

• Who you need engage,
• When you need to engage with them, and
• How you will engage with them (what channels you will use).

From pre-survey to post-survey and everything in between, you’ll need to get buy in from your managers and employees alike. Your employees crave transparency. 

They also need to know what’s in it for them. Make sure your communication plan shows them exactly that.

Rallying your management team to champion your survey

As you developed your employee survey, you likely had involvement from your leadership team. Now time to get buy in from your management team. They will be the ones who can share initial concerns their employees may have and report back any additional feedback they receive. 

DOWNLOAD FREE EBOOK: THE BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO GREAT LEADERSHIP

You’ll need leaders on your side who can champion change. They need to be able to effectively communicate the why with employees and get employees interested. When your leaders are excited about your survey, your employees will be too.

Communicating the benefits to your employees upfront

When you introduce your survey to your employees, highlight how your survey will benefit them. This will increase the likeness that they will participate and give you honest responses. 

Surveys provide employees a safe place to voice their concerns

Openly sharing concerns can be difficult for employees. Research has shown that more than 75% of survey respondents want to remain anonymous, for example. Using surveys allows them to share more than they normally would without fear of reprisal. 

Your survey gives them the opportunity to provide honest, unfiltered feedback. If your survey responses remain anonymous, make sure your employees know it.

Employee feedback brings the real issues to light

Many times, employees and leadership aren’t always on the same page when it comes to identifying challenges. For example, TINYpulse found that while 71% of managers feel they are very transparent, only 48% of their employees share that sentiment.

DID YOU KNOW ONLY 22% OF EMPLOYEES THINK THEIR MANAGEMENT IS TRANSPARENT?

Surveys bring workplace problems and challenges to the forefront. By listening to your employees, you can better prioritize and select key improvement areas to target.

Employees can take part in the decision-making process

Many employees feel left out of decision-making processes. When surveys are properly managed, they have the chance to say what’s on their mind. This feedback can lead to engaging dialogue and noticeable workplace improvements.

The key is having a strong feedback loop. Be transparent with your timeline for reviewing and sharing results. Involve your employees in post-survey discussions and let them ask questions. 

READ MORE: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO EMPLOYEE SURVEY QUESTIONS

When your employees feel they are heard, they will be more invested in the outcomes and develop more trust in your leadership team.

9 innovative ways to socialize the concept of an employee survey

To get your employees excited about taking your survey, you want to build awareness and anticipation. 

READ MORE: INCREASE YOUR SURVEY RESPONSE IN ONE EMAIL

Here are nine innovative ways to socialize the concept of employee surveys in your workplace during each phase of your survey communications plan.

Pre-survey employee communications

1. Send a survey introduction email

Before your email goes live, send an introduction email to familiarize your employees with the survey platform you will be using, why you are conducting the survey, and how it benefits them. 

Let your employees know what to expect when you go live, who to contact with questions, and share any relevant resources with them.

2. Record a video to humanize your employee survey

Videos are a great way to connect with your employees and make an emotional appeal. Research shows the average person spends 100 minutes watching videos every day. It’s also the preferred way for many people to receive information.

A short introduction video by a trusted leader helps you engage your employees and increase their awareness. This is especially important with a larger than ever remote workforce.

3. Hang posters in your lunchroom and common areas

Similar to a billboard advertisement, posters physically posted around your workplace work to capture your employees’ attention and “make the ask”. 

To ensure your posters are effective as possible, keep the design simple. Don’t include too many details. 

Instead, include just enough to get your key points across. For some posters, this includes the:

• Survey name
• Brief description of the survey and how it benefits your employees
• Opening date
• Where they can go to learn more 

You can also use a simpler poster to promote your survey. For this, you just need a great graphic and strong call to action. 

Below are different TINYpulse survey poster examples.

Employee survey poster sample #1

Employee survey poster sample #2

Employee survey poster sample #3

Employee survey poster sample #4

4. Start a company culture committee 

Rather than taking a top-down approach to introducing surveys, you can give your employees the opportunity to take ownership of the process.

Culture committees are typically made up of employee volunteers from throughout an organization. They come together to monitor culture health, analyze feedback from their peers, and join in the decision-making process.

READ MORE: THE TOP 30 COMPANY EXPERTS TO FOLLOW ON TWITTER

Implementing a culture committee can help you create a shared sense of responsibility. Your employees will be more confident that the concerns they share will be addressed because they are being reviewed by their peers. This, in turn, will increase your participation rates.

5. Highlight your survey in an intranet or newsletter article

Does your internal communications strategy include intranet articles or employee newsletters? If so, you can easily leverage these to promote your survey. 

And don’t stop at one, either. Use your articles to keep employees up-to-date throughout the process. After your initial introduction article, you can follow up with a launch article and include a call to action.

When you are ready to share your results, close the feedback loop with a final article providing in-depth results and your action plan.

Survey launch communications

6. Make survey taking as easy as possible

Change is often met with resistance. Whether you’re introducing an employee engagement survey or pulse surveys, your employees may not be comfortable with the new technology. 

Try to make it as easy as possible for them to take it. Integrating with platforms your employees are already using gives them a sense of familiarity. 

TINYpulse integrates with both Slack and Microsoft Teams so your employees can answer your survey questions without ever visiting the website.

7. Hold an employee survey launch party 

Launch parties are a fun way to motivate your employees to take your survey. While an in-person option may not be likely in times of social distancing, you can take the party online.

Create a theme for your launch party and host a live webinar for your staff to attend. You can have different leaders briefly share why the survey is important to them and even hold competitions and giveaways.

8. Have a team to serve as ambassadors when your survey launches

When someone we know and respects recommends something, we are much more likely to trust it. Social proof is a technique used often in marketing and you can apply a similar tactic to increase your survey participation.

Look for a small group of 5 to 10 influential employees from different areas of your organization and ask them to take a pilot survey. 

After the survey, get their feedback about their experience and if they’d be willing to provide a short testimonial. You can then use this in your intranet articles and even video promotions. 

When you launch your survey, have your team ready to check in with their peers periodically to see if they’ve taken the survey yet. 

Post-survey employee communications

9. Send a follow-up email to your employees

After your survey ends, you can send your employees an email highlighting the initial data you received. This could include the total number of responses as well as the responses for each department or team. 

Make sure to acknowledge your employees for taking the survey and congratulate the teams with the highest responses.

Are you ready to launch your employee survey?

A strong communications plan can make the difference between a successful survey and a flop. 

From pre-launch to follow up, engage your employees during each phase of your survey process and keep the focus on them. 

With your employees’ help, you can develop a strategic action to make lasting workplace improvements. Here’s to creating the best workplace you can!

READ MORE:

• The Ultimate Guide To Employee Survey Questions
• 50 Essential Questions To Include In Your Employee Survey 
• Here's The Perfect Solution If You Want To Run An Employee Survey — Template Inside