When I speak to potential clients about employee surveys, I often get the feedback that they’ve tried them and they just don’t work.
So, why don’t employee surveys work?
- Lack of “sell” – line managers do not promote the survey and encourage their team to participate
- Poor take up – few employees respond, as they fail to see the point
- High abandon rate – complicated surveys that take too long to complete mean those that do start, get bored and give up before reaching the end
- No follow up – employees don’t hear what happened to their responses; no summary of the results are shared with the whole organisation
- No action – not only do companies fail to share results, they also fail to respond – taking appropriate action
Ultimately, there is no point in carrying out employee surveys if you are not planning to do anything with them.
By treating the exercise as a tick in the box, you aren’t making best use of your time or investment in the system.
But, employee surveys can work very successfully. In the next two posts I will share some tips on improving your success rate, and making them effective for your business.
In the meantime, if you would like help setting up employee surveys for your organisation, please contact us on 01256 328 428.