One of the typical tasks of HR professionals is running periodic surveys focused on getting feedback on employees' satisfaction with their jobs and careers in the company or their level of engagement. But how to ensure the surveys will really work and help your company gather information that will contribute to an improvement in its economic results? TLNT.com advises avoiding the following mistakes.
1. Do not spam your employees
It is not necessary to obtain answers from all employees; you need a representative sample. Do not send employees repeated calls to complete the survey - and especially not those who have already completed it.
2. Do not only collect information
Do not ask for things you cannot change. You will reliably destroy your employees' efforts if you force them to complete a survey but then never let them know what happened with their feedback.
3. Do not confuse the survey with a plan to increase engagement
An employee survey is used to collect feedback. An action plan is something else: it describes specific uses of the feedback in order to increase employee engagement.
4. Prepare managers in advance
Line managers should know you are preparing a survey among their subordinates and that they should engage in the implementation of new measures based on the collected feedback. Their role is crucial; therefore it is necessary to build a mutual relationship based on trust and your common goal to help both the company and employees achieve greater satisfaction.
5. Check your employee database
Agree on specific ways to work with your employee database and procedures to create reports with all the HR people involved. Repeating a survey just because e.g. you sent it to non-existent employees is not only expensive but also annoying.
6. Read the answers
It makes no sense to ask employees to give their opinions if you do not read them. Prepare for the fact that you will have to read a lot and it will take a lot of time.
7. Ask for feedback more frequently than once a year
Call on managers to communicate with their subordinates throughout the whole year. Lead them to be interested in how their staff are doing at work, what they like, how a manager can help, etc.
8. Do not delay the survey results
Employees should learn what you found out within two to three weeks. They also expect you to come up with suggestions of what to change and how. The longer you wait, the less they will be interested.
9. Stop regarding engagement as a task for HR
Employee satisfaction and engagement is a matter HR can help with but the main responsibility is on managers. It is important both you and your managers know this.
10. Keep high demands on your providers
If you use external providers of employee survey solutions, do not agree with waiting up to a month to receive the results. Want the results in 14 days. Demand a high quality of these services. There are many providers to choose from.
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