If you have followed my last two blogs, then you should have created a great employee survey. So now what do you do?
Our first blog looked at why surveys fail, then we looked out how they can succeed. So with that in mind, you can create your perfect employee survey. Now you need to follow these tips to successfully implement it.
1. Plan
- It’s no good just leaping in and circulating your survey. To make it work, you need to have a good plan – before you start.
- Decide on how long you will keep the survey open, and how you will monitor implementation. Set up your analysis process now, before you begin. Think about how you will share the results.
- In fact, I would recommend preparing the email/communication thanking your team and telling everyone a few headline facts before you start. By headlines, I mean the uptake on completion, and perhaps a couple of results such as 80% of the team rated us good or better at …
2. Communicate
- Sharing your plans and what you want to achieve from implementing employee surveys needs to be a whole company exercise.
- Ideally, you will hold a whole company “town hall” type event, where you or one of your senior team stand up and explain the process, and ask for everyone’s help.
- Reinforce the message with posters on noticeboards, intranet communication, and email follow up with the survey link (if you are doing it online), and reminders to complete it by the deadline.
3. Action
- The way to really get buy-in for employee surveys is to prove you are going to take action. This helps to build trust, which is essential for strong employee relationships.
- Don’t shy away from sharing the less positive aspects of your survey – if you had a poor uptake, tell your team. Consider asking them what would encourage them to complete it next time.
- Share some of the key messages and what you are going to do next.
- Make sure you monitor actions to ensure they really happen. Keep sharing with your team, so they appreciate things are happening, even if they are behind the scenes initially.
Employee surveys really can be very powerful. But I hope I have demonstrated in my last two posts that planning and preparation are the key to success.