How to make survey result practically effective

[MinhNH]

Which actions should we do when having results from an employee engagement survey?

It has been happening in my workplace that we conduct a survey, get result, show it to employees. Then, no one mention about the survey until end of the next year, when we conduct another yearly survey. We always receive complains from our employees "It make nonsense to answer survey questions. As all stay the same." This results in low responding rate.

I really want to improve it. I look forward to learning from your experience and advice.

Thanks in advance.

[Jean Douglas, CMC]

Communication is key. On-going communication that refers to the survey results as action plans are developed, as they are implemented and again when they are evaluated.

A successful survey starts with two integrated plans. A survey project plan (design, distribution, collection, analysis, reporting, etc.) and a communication plan.

For the purposes of this discussion, I will not address survey design, analysis and interpretation of the results. But, must be clear that if the survey is improperly designed then the best communications will not help improve the situation.

If you have an internal communication department then get their help. The basics of any communication plan involve:
- being able to articulate the goals and objectives of the survey
- Identifying your audiences (e.g., the board, senior executive team, division leaders, managers, supervisors, front line employees, back office employees, etc.)
- determining the information needs of each of the audience groups (there may be some common messages for all and some specific messages for others)
- identifying the key messages - what is it you should be reporting
- identifying the best channels for the messages (e.g., newsletter, blog, CEO, manager-led meetings, etc. and it may be a combination of things)
- what tools will be needed to help the messengers deliver the message
- creating action plans (that should roll into business planning).

The survey results should be considered one [important] piece of business metric information that is included in business planning.

I have provided a very brief overview and hope that it makes sense. Let me know if you would like more detail.

[MinhNH]

Thank you very much for your useful advice. We have done just a part of the communication plan. We did communication just around the period of conducting the survey.

Thanks again. I will make a detailed communication plan basing on your advice.

[Shawn Lerch]

I am in the development phase of my thesis project on the predictive factors of employee engagement. Could you provide direction on available measurement tools designed obtain baseline data on the employees engagement level. The Utrecht Work and Well being survey is the most prevalent in in my literature searches. However, I could not find any U.S. studies on the validity of the English language version. Any direction on the validity of the UWES tool or another would be appreciated.

[Jean Douglas, CMC]

I'm not quite clear about what you are looking for. Are you seeking a set of questions to measure engagement and the items that act as predictive factors?
Or the predictive analysis methodology?
Are you looking for a specific country's data - i.e., benchmark data?
If you tell me a little more, I may be able to help.

[Shawn Lerch]

To bolster the validity of my study, I am looking for surveys or methods to first determine employee engagement levels. Once the engagement level has been determined, I will conduct regression and discriminant analysis to identify which drivers are significant in my study population.
Unfortunately, all the U.S. studies I have reviewed base engagement purely on the Observed factors or drivers. I am unable to see the methodology used to determine the construct validity of studies by Gallup or Towers-Perrin. Based on research methodology, my advisors for the project want more scientific support on how to appropriately measure engagement and then identify which factor is significant (i.e. communication, leadership, recognition, friendships).
The UWES, out of the Netherlands is the only tool I could find which measures engagement versus using organizational drivers to infer engagement. The problem with the UWES is my advisors insist on showing the English version is valid with the translation and I am having difficulty finding English studies on the construct validity or stability of the tool. The UWES has been widely used in Europe and Asia but not in the U.S. or Canada.
Any direction on other engagement level measures with demonstrated validity is appreciated.

[Jean Douglas, CMC]

You can try contacting Hewitt Associates in Canada - contact the Best Employer in Canada Study lead and I also suggest contacting Ray Baumruk in the Lincolnshire, Illinois office as he is one of the founders of the engagement methodology. The engagement methodology used was very well researched and tested. The formulation of the engagement measure was based on academic research and practical (applied) studies. The driver analysis was fine-tuned over the years and subsequent research with participating organizations showed that attention to the high drivers resulted in higher levels of engagement. I recollect one organization that focused on a low driver of engagement (for attraction reasons) and their engagement score dropped.
The Canadian Best Employer study has been an annual research project for going on ten years which has provided a wealth of information on organizations in Canada. Hewitt also conducts engagement research as well as Best Employer studies in over a dozen countries in the world - using the same methodology.
Here is the link to the Best Employer in Canada website http://was7.hewitt.com/bestemployers/canada/pages/index.htm
Here is phone number for the Lincolnshire office: [phone] - ask for Ray Baumruk

Good Luck with your studies!

[Shawn Lerch]

Thank you very much for the information

[Susan Robinson]

I love your question because it highlights a common problem with employee surveys: lack of follow through. Finding problems is the easy part - Doing something about them is much harder! And you're right - Surveys actually have a negative impact if they just provide employees with evidence that "Nothing changes. So why bother?" Employees may also feel that it's not safe to answer surveys honestly.

First, I'd want to know what reason your company has for doing employee surveys. If the agenda is to satisfy some system or policy requirement, forget the survey and focus on ditching the policy. The survey will only result in changes if senior leaders see the value in assessing and improving employee engagement. What employee behaviors or internal conflicts point to a problem with engagement (aside from low survey response rate!)? What improvements do leaders want?

Second, I'd want to know what kind of survey you are using. What does it ask? Is it only measuring the current level of engagement or does it gather information about factors that impact employee feelings about the company and their work? In other words, is it looking for causes or only effects?

Third, communication of survey results is not enough. If employees take the risk to answer a survey, they are either content with how things are or they hope to see changes. Narrow down problem areas and if possible, quantify the impact to enroll leadership support for making some changes.

Prioritize: What changes can be made immediately? What are short and long term goals? And what changes are not likely to happen? If at all possible, implement some changes - based on employee needs and suggestions - immediately. Then let employees know how you took their advice. This immediate gratification will increase employee's tolerance to wait for other changes. It builds up some trust equity.

The action plan will be unique - responsive to the specific concerns of your employees. But there are some basic principles that can guide you: People want to feel respected and valued. They want to belong. They want to grow and learn. And people don't set these needs aside when they come to work. Implement changes that respond to these emotional needs, and you'll have a significant impact on improving employee engagement.

Begin at the top. Trainers, HR, and middle managers can't sustain employee engagement without executive support. The effort, the tension between the agenda of the top leaders and the needs of the employees will eventually wear them down.

If the top leaders in your company understand the value of engagement and just don't know how to do it, we'd be happy to help.

By the way, if your company wants an assessment of the current levels of engagement without interviewing employees, we offer a free online assessment that measures employee engagement based on employee behaviors. It's available at http://www.rivetmaker.com/eagerAssessment.htm

[Mike Morrison]

Hi
The information given so far is sound and good advice, but much misses for me the key point... who wants the survey? who owns the results?

Often HR undertake such surveys without TOTAL commitment from the MD and operations director. If you are going to survey you must be clear about your commitment to action. That means action throughout the whole organisation. This leads on to the questions asked, if you are not prepared to take certain actions then don't ask questions about it - you need to manage expectations. For example, if you are paying low rates for the job and cannot afford to pay more - do not ask if you are a fair payer! If you cannot sanction training as the result of the survey do not ask questions about training. Be realistic.
How soon after the survey will you show employees the results? We advise all organizations undertaking staff surveys to publish a communications plan which states when they will get to see the raw results and when they can expect to hear the plan for action.
Remember the key here is only offer what you can deliver, do not ask questions on topics that you cannot impact.
Hope this helps

Good luck
Mike
RapidBI - Employee Surveys

[MinhNH]

Thank you very much for your helpful information.

[Andrea Montuschi]

Hello,

At Towers Perrin-ISR we always stress the importance of communicating the results (step 1), but also to act upon issues.
Surveying your employees is very good, but by asking questions about their engagement you also raise their expectations, and managing these expectations is the hard part.
Typically, we'd suggest (and help our clients) to identify the top priorities to act on, making sure they then communicate to all employees that some issues were identified, and that in the short-medium term the company would work on some of them (not more than three, normally).
There are different ways to identify priorities, of course. One is to concentrate on the engagement drivers (if improving the overall engagement is the objective), for example.
We would normally organise a workshop with managers at the end of the survey, to teach them how to read their results (we provide specific results to each manager), how to prioritise, how to plan for action.

Failing to establish priorities and to act leads to lower response rates and - very often - to poorer results the following year. The survey ends up being perceived as yet another "HR exercise", while it should be (or become) a real management tool.

Regards,
Andrea

Towers Perrin-ISR

[Stephen J. Gill]

I agree with all of the advice that has been given in the replies so far. It is critical to help employees understand the implications of the survey results, use the results to make some changes, and then communicate these changes and impact of these changes to employees. Otherwise, as others have said, it makes no sense to continue the survey and you won't get useful data, anyway.

I would add another suggestion. I subscribe to the dictum: "no data without stories and no stories without data." If you are trying to measure change in engagement due to organizational interventions, I would follow-up with interviews of employees who are highly engaged (and some who are not highly engaged) and get their stories about what has contributed to their engagement as well as what gets in the way of engagement in your organization. Stories help to explain the survey results and make those results interesting and meaningful. Otherwise you don't really know why you got the results you got. Then communicate these stories to all employees, tell them what you are going to do with the information, and then, of course, do what you said you were going to do.