Top 10 Tips for using Employee Attitude Surveys.
Employee attitude surveys are commonplace in today's organisations and provide useful information to gauge employee attitudes and wellbeing. These in turn can have a positive effect on motivation and performance. However, how often have you heard employees remark, "Not another one" or query, "What happened to the last one?"
Below are the top 10 tips on how employee attitude surveys should be used to optimise the results.
Approach as a change management project - employee attitude surveys should be used to determine what changes need to be made to create a more motivated and productive work environment. It should be used in conjunction with your organisational knowledge and previous data you have gathered on attitudes and performance statistics e.g. turnover, absenteeism, sickness.
Identify aims - senior managers should clarify the aims of the survey e.g. to compare organisational groups, to provide objective measures as to what needs to be changed.
Don't do it unless senior management are prepared to act on the results - it is critical for top level management to be engaged and commit to the survey from the outset. This will help them understand the benefits for the organisation and the subsequent changes that need to be made. Running a survey and not acting on the results is worse than not doing a survey at all.
Gain authorisation from IT - online surveys will need approval from IT to ensure they are compatible with the organisation's software systems or what may need updating to enable it to run.
Gain stakeholder & union buy-in - it is important to involve stakeholders and unions at the early stages. The confidentiality of individual responses should be reinforced as well as the aim of the survey to effect positive changes at an organisational level.
Develop project plan - consider the timeframes for each phase of the roll-out, from gaining authorisation to rolling out the results and implementing any desired change. This helps keep the project on track and the momentum going.
Allocate resources - resources will be required to distribute the survey and analyse results as well as implementing any changes.
Target the entire work-force rather than a sample - if resources permit, targeting the entire work-force will raise the survey's profile, provide a more in-depth breakdown of results across different business areas and ensure a higher level of buy-in at a local level when the results are rolled out.
Consider ways of maximising responses - publicise the survey widely including the aims and individual confidentiality. Also ensure that time constraints on respondents are minimised and they are given time off to complete the survey, if required.
Design a clear communications strategy - this should incorporate the aims and expected timeframes of the project, including rollout of results. Consider the different ways of communicating this internally e.g. meetings, newsletters, intranet.
Article written by Megan Jenkins, Principal Psychologist, Mendas Ltd
