For many decades now, surveys have been a staple in businesses toolkits, used to gather intel, feedback and assess engagement. Consisting of numerous questions regarding training, leadership, development, environment, recognition, pay and many more areas, surveys allow businesses to uncover employee opinions by giving them a platform to be heard.
In recent years, businesses have steered away from classic surveys. Due to major advancements and the technological boom, many businesses have switched to using machine-learning algorithms to determine employee engagement. These algorithms explore employees network connections through a variety of platforms, incoming and outgoing emails, and response rates, and uses how often an employee updates their resume as a predictor of staff turnover.
With admin and time-consuming surveys left to collect dust and new genius computers to do all the work, it’s no wonder businesses are making the switch, but have we lost sight of what employee engagement is?
No matter the industry, engagement remains the foundation of success for any organisation. It benefits of improved productivity, efficiency, profitability, retention, and reduced staff turnover cannot be overstated, and it all begins with the employees.
Engagement surveys are designed to gain insight into employees’ thoughts, attitudes, and opinions. They provide an opportunity for open and honest feedback and gives employees a direct voice to upper leadershipt. But it’s not all about a four-day working week, higher salaries and bonuses or job satisfaction.
By actively involving employees and valuing their opinions helps foster connections, identifies strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, motivational factors and implement business policies and methods. Engagement is mutually beneficial, a win-win for both the employee and employer that positively impacts personal, team and business success.
Engagement surveys shouldn’t be a one off, the current global pandemic has highlighted that we live in an everchanging world, business and their employees are constantly growing, developing and adapting. What is relevant now may be obsolete in a week, a month, a year, or 5 years, no one knows, which is why the regular distribution of surveys is so crucial.
So, when was your last employee engagement survey?
Regularly measuring employee engagement through opinion surveys is an evidence-based characteristic of a high-performance team. If you are unaware of where your employees currently stand how will you recognise where you need to improve? These key insights cannot be determined by how quickly you respond to an email or how many connections you have on LinkedIn.
Developing an engagement survey should take time and effort, they need to be relevant so that businesses can gain insights and develop a clear action plan. This comes down to the quality of the survey and its questioning
- Don’t overcomplicate it
Clear questions lead to clear actions. Avoid multipart questioning that can mislead answers, instead break the question up. This is also applicable to the survey as a whole. Engagement surveys are generally optional, the responses obtained are only a sample of the business. It is therefore crucial that you obtain an accurate representation by encouraging as many employees as possible complete it. Studies show that employees are less likely to partake in lengthy time-consuming surveys, keep it short, keep it targeted and keep it relevant.
2. Keep it to a scale
The purpose of the survey is to analyse the results, you need to be able to interpret and compare individual responses. Ask questions that can be answered on a scale, generally a 5-point range from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Employees have a choice without allowing for them to become overwhelmed and allows administrators to directly compare results. Keep the scale consistent throughout the survey as it then allows you to compare questions and priorities areas of focus.
3. Provide an opportunity to elaborate
Allow for at least one open-ended question. Employees can convey their opinions on a scale, but asking an open question allows employers to better understand specific challenges and highlight key areas of improvement. This frees employees and encourages original thoughts as they are not limited to a set of provided responses.
In Summary:
Engagement surveys may seem low-tech but gathering feedback and insights from employees on a regular basis has always been and will continue to be essential to success.
People want to be heard and engaged at work, are enabling them to do so?
Want to learn more about how we can support you in evaluating your teams engagement? Contact us or complete our High-Performance Health Check and receive a benchmark report plus complimentary one on one debrief.