Employee surveys: A Key Way to Measure Employee Engagement

Article Written By: Alison Young

An employee survey is an important tool for any company or organisation, helping to measure levels of employee engagement, employee satisfaction, and general morale at work, as well as the reasons why the results or scores are as they are.

Todays competitive markets make it harder than ever for businesses to survive. Despite the worst recession in over 40 years, many organisations have maintained their commitment to conducting employee surveys since they believe it to be more critical than ever to understand the opinions and views of their employees. This understanding is increasingly critical for improved business performance and growth.

A very important area to consider before conducting any employee survey is its main objective, along with the best means for collecting the data - for example, should it be done via an online survey, printed/postal questionnaires, focus groups, workshops, interviews, and so on.

By demonstrating that management wants to hear what staff really think, employee surveys help maintain good relations between the company and its employees, thereby creating greater employee engagement with the business.

Employee surveys often cover topics such as: what drives employee engagement, how well internal communications work within the company, perceptions of company leadership, satisfaction with line management support and motivation, aspects of training and development, general working conditions and the relationships within and between teams.

Employee surveys are very useful for identifying underlying workplace problems and barriers to good customer service and productivity. However, another important reason to run a survey is to identify and measure what is working well currently. Too often, surveys are seen as a tool to find faults, when it can be even more useful in identifying the things a company is doing right. This information can be critical to attract and retain high quality staff - the very marketable individuals you dont want to lose!

The first employee survey conducted within a company is usually broadly based, enabling that company to put a stake in the ground and collect a range of benchmark measures, often on up to 50 subjects. However, as experience with employee surveys develops, there may be a trend to address a more limited range of topics, or to run a more focused survey, sometimes on a single topic, such as internal communications for example.

Specific types of employee survey include exit surveys (for those leaving the company), welcome surveys (to see what new employees think, soon after theyve been recruited), training needs surveys (to help the L andamp; D team identify where their efforts will be needed in the coming year), and barometer or temperature check surveys (where you can test a few key questions on a more regular basis, or to look at a particular area where youve introduced changes).

Whatever the objectives for a particular organisation, it is certainly true that modern organisations that wish to compete effectively, need the kind of measures and feedback that are provided by employee surveys.

About the Author

Surveysolutions service includes advising on survey content, designing and managing data collection, analysis, reporting, and implementation consultancy.

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