There are many components to consider when figuring out what to assess and how to implement change in your workplace. Employee surveys are a great place to start, but they will only be effective if you have the right tools and strategies in place to conduct them.
According to Kevin Kruse, author of Employee Engagement 2.0, employee satisfaction surveys should form the backbone of any employee engagement effort. However, not all surveys are created equal. It’s crucial to understand what makes employee satisfaction surveys successful.
Here are three best practices to keep in mind.
1. Technology in the Workplace: Conduct employee satisfaction surveys to define goals and offer incentives
Before you do anything, you need to establish what your goals are. What do you want to know, how do you want to measure the results, and what would a success look like? It’s important for management to understand all these things to create the best employee survey. Once you define your goals, consider what incentives you’ll offer to entice employees to complete your survey.
Employee participation is key to the success of your survey response rates and utilizing technology in the workforce. If employees don’t answer accurately (or at all), everyone’s time is wasted. One effective way to encourage participation is to hold a competition. Play into your employees’ competitive nature by pitting departments against each other, while offering prizes to the winners.
2. Digital Technology in Business: Use secure messaging to ask the right questions the right way anonymously
It’s tempting to ask only open-ended questions, but it’s best to avoid that temptation. While open-ended questions offer qualitative data, they can also be overwhelming to respondents. This is especially true for employees who aren’t excited about taking the survey to begin with.
Instead, ask a mix of different types of questions, and make sure you have a way to do so anonymously. Keep some simple with multiple-choice answers, and leave the most important questions open-ended. That will give you a good amount of data while getting quality feedback.
3. Digital Collaboration: Evaluate and report results to improve internal communications.
After you have the results, you have to do something with them. Review the results to see what employees had to say. Is there a general consensus on a particular topic? You may be surprised to discover what employees actually care about, and that knowledge will be imperative going forward.
It’s also important to report the employee satisfaction survey results to your workforce. They took time out of their busy day to fill out the survey; they are invested in the results. This article in Inc. admits that it isn’t fun to share the dirty laundry, so keep the results anonymous, especially if the results weren’t what you expected. The bottom line is employees want to know management is listening and willing to make changes based on feedback, while you harness digital technology in business.
Once you’ve completed the employee satisfaction survey process, your job isn’t over in this digital collaboration. Now it’s time to do something about the results. The founder and former CEO of BerylHealth, Paul Spiegelman, insists, “Asking for feedback is only one third of the battle. If you ask, you better be accountable and be prepared to assign resources to the project.” If employees see you acting on the results, they will believe that the results matter.
Are you interested in keeping your workforce happy with the best employee satisfaction surveys? Submit the form below to find out more about secure messaging and internal communications with Beekeeper.
