Many organisations approach an employee engagement survey as a “tick the box” exercise and are surprised and disappointed with their employees’ lack of interest and participation in the process.
These organisations miss the point that running an employee survey is a great opportunity to boost employee engagement in itself. Below are some tips for engaging your people in the engagement survey process so that the journey to high performance has well and truly started before you send out your employee survey.
1. Brand your program
Consider branding your engagement survey and any subsequent actions, outcomes and improvements driven by survey results. Powerful catchphrases such as “Your voice”, “We hear you” and “Ignite” portray openness, positivity and action. Think about words that can be embedded into your cultural jargon so the employee survey becomes an expected and welcome event on the annual organisational calendar.
2. Gain trust by using an external provider
Some employees can be quite sceptical about surveys and don’t believe they are truly private and confidential. They may feel that “big brother” is watching and fear that their managers will identify their survey responses and comments. Using an experienced, proven and trusted third party to administer your survey, and clearly communicating that this is the case, will help employees feel comfortable in responding to the survey. Investing in a trusted external provider also shows that your organisation is serious about improving performance.
3. Consider the timing
Employee engagement surveys are often driven by KPIs, metrics, budgets and directions from senior management. However, employees will be more engaged and more willing to participate in the process if you are conscious of other events such as public and school holidays, other organisational surveys, month/quarter/year end requirements etc., which are also claiming their attention. If you can find a period that is as free from conflicting priorities as possible, you should experience a higher participation rate.
4. Give them a reason
One of the best ways to increase employee response rates is to tug at their heartstrings. Beyond the standard communications that explain how employee feedback will be used for new initiatives for improvement, we also suggest offering an incentive for completing the survey, such as a donation made on their behalf. Imagine how employees will feel if by taking only 10 minutes of their time, your organisation will donate money to a children’s charity, a wildlife fund or the fight against cancer.
5. Communicate, communicate and then communicate some more!
There can never be enough communication throughout any survey process. Make use of internal newsletters, message boards and intranets to talk about the survey and its benefits as early and as often as possible. Emails from the CEO and/or senior leadership team also add weight to the importance of the task and demonstrate that the entire organisation is in it together. Also the impact of a thank you email to all employees during the survey period can never be underestimated.
Immediately after the survey has closed, it is wise to provide a summary to the organisation of response rates plus a commitment as to when and how results will be shared with the whole organisation.
6. Close the loop
One of the most common things we hear from employees in pre and post survey focus groups is that they never receive any detail of the results of the survey. They feel that if they are not informed, the organisation is either hiding something or the employee survey has been a tokenistic exercise. When the survey comes around again, these employees are unlikely to complete it and the survey response rate drops further. It is extremely important that you communicate results to all employees as soon as possible after you receive the data. Also, keep the survey at the forefront of employees’ minds through ongoing and regular updates on improvement initiatives implemented throughout the year that can be linked back to the survey results. This will entrench the idea that employee feedback is crucial in shaping organisational strategy on an ongoing basis.
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