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Perfect Phrases for Writing Employee Surveys

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Contents

Chapter One

Start by considering the five main tasks that make up an effective employee survey process:

1. Define the goals of the survey. Determine whom you want to learn from, why you want that learning, and what precise information you seek. Why survey at all? Chapter 2 is your guide to survey definition.

2. Set reasonable expectations. Prepare the landscape with both management and employees before the survey to ensure that everyone is on the same page regarding the goals of the survey and how the resulting information will be used. Chapter 3 gives more detail about this step.

3. Design the survey. This step is like outlining a document before writing. Make a list of the main parts of the survey and their order, determine survey techniques you want to use, and select your administration method. Chapter 4 gives an overview of the decisions you'll need to make and common mistakes to avoid.

4. Write the survey. Part Two (Chapters 5–19) gives you easy access to hundreds of sample questions, sorted by the specific kind of survey you are conducting, plus ideas for introductory and concluding language.

5. Collect, analyze, and communicate the results, not just to the management team but also to the employees who were surveyed. Part Three focuses on how to share the findings so that management can not only act on the results but also draw the link between changes and the survey.

Employee surveys can fail at any point in the process as a result of objectives that are not clear; poor design in the process; ineffective questions; mistakes in administration (a survey that is too long, sent at the wrong time, or sent to the wrong people); a low or uneven response rate; faulty analysis of the data; and, quite frequently, in the actions taken or not taken based on the survey data.

To avoid these pitfalls, give yourself enough time to think through each of the steps. Keep in mind that your first survey will take longer to plan than subsequent ones. Two processes are going to eat up time in the planning phase. The first is learning, and the second is consensus building. To jump-start your learning, talk to colleagues to see if they have relevant communications or analytical expertise. Trone, a marketing communications firm based in North Carolina, turned to its Ph.D. statisticians to design the first survey for its own employees. Trone has adapted consumer research methodology to surveying employee satisfaction based on the net number of staff who would recommend the company as an employer.

You don't have to do it by yourself, and that doesn't necessarily mean engaging outside consultants. You may have all the resources you need right in your own organization. If your company sells a product or service, it probably has a marketing department that knows its way around surveys. Your finance or accounting department probably has statisticians or folks who love to crunch numbers. Members of your IT department may be able to install and troubleshoot Web-based and off-the-shelf survey tools. Ask for help appropriately and early, and they'll stick with you. Run to them late in the process with urgent demands, and you're likely to meet resistance. By asking colleagues to be on a short-term task force or even just for their ideas, you'll shorten your learning curve and build consensus at the same time. The very act of asking for help builds awareness and ultimately spreads ownership of the employee survey process deeper into the organization.

Perfect Phrases for Asking for Help

* I'm planning an employee survey process and I know you have some experience in [field of expertise] that could be useful. Could we schedule a 15-minute conversation so that I can learn more about what specific expertise you have that could help make this process more effective?

* I'm putting together a short-term task force to design the process for our next employee survey. Are you available to join? I estimate it will involve [number] meetings or conference calls over the next [number] weeks.

* Your expertise would be invaluable in an employee survey I'm planning.

* We have an opportunity to gain some important information by surveying the employees on [subject]. Can I meet with you to get your input so we can design and implement the best survey possible?

To save time on future surveys, be sure to document your process as you go along. After each step, take a few minutes to debrief and note what went well and what didn't. Once you have the process down, you'll be able to conduct frequent, short surveys to keep your information up to date and your employees reminded of their value to the organization.

Chapter Two

Before you can design the survey, it's important to ask, "Why survey at all?" Organizations conduct surveys to discover answers to certain questions, but perhaps there are other ways to get the information your organization needs. Surveys are best for asking questions to which you genuinely don't know the answer. So before you go through the trouble of doing a survey, ask yourself if anyone else in the organization possibly has the answers to the questions already.

You'll be tempted to begin a survey by writing the questions. This approach is a mistake and will set you back. If you begin by writing the questions, you'll lose focus on what's important.

Unless the goal of the survey is to gather general baseline information about employee attitudes, the most effective employee surveys tend to be focused on one or two narrow issues or topics about which decisions need to be made. When the results allow the organization to make a more informed decision about these matters, the survey has served its purpose. To get to that point, you'll need as many employees as possible to respond completely, honestly, and promptly. Chapter 4 includes many hints for increasing participation and reliability rates.

Summarize Your Goals

Many organizations find it helpful to begin by encapsulating their survey goals in broad terms by completing the following summary statements:

We will conduct an employee survey ...

* To listen to ________ in order

* to learn __________ and/or

* to quantify ___________.

Notice that the first blank encourages you to define which employees will be surveyed. The second focuses you on learning, and the third lays out what data you need in order to make decisions.

Experienced survey designers always begin by committing the research goals to writing. Clearly stated goals keep a research project focused. There are as many survey goal statements as there are surveys. The Perfect Phrases box that follows offers a number of questions that can be inserted in the "to learn" or "to quantify" fields in the rubric. They can help guide you in creating a unique statement for your own survey.

Here are a few examples of how this rubric can work:

We will conduct an employee survey ...

* To listen to all employees in order

* to learn about their sense of satisfaction and

* to quantify any differences between sites.

We will conduct an employee survey ...

* To listen to new employees in order

* to learn about their early experience in our company and

* to quantify the effectiveness of our orientation programs.

Perfect Phrases for Defining the Question

* How satisfied are new employees after 30 days on the job?

* Are employees satisfied with the career development opportunities the company offers?

* Is the mix of benefits the company currently offers contributing to employee satisfaction?

* Are there some benefits our employees would want the company to offer?

* What do our employees think of the service they are offering customers?

* Is there anything the company can do to keep valued employees from resigning?

* How effectively have the employees internalized the values the company promotes?

* What can the company do to promote employee collaboration?

* Are employees satisfied with the supervision they are receiving?

* Do employees think they have the right resources and tools to be productive?

* Is there a significant difference between the engagement of employees at facility A and employees in facility B?

* Are we doing enough of the right things to keep our employees satisfied and motivated?

Every survey needs to be a specific response to a specific question or set of related questions, the more specific the better. Regardless of your budget or the resources you have available, the survey process always begins with the end in mind. What question do you want to answer? What problem do you want to solve? What actions are your leaders willing to take in response to a survey?

Five Good Reasons for Conducting Surveys

1. To discover what employees are thinking and doing. In a nonthreatening survey environment, your organization will learn about what motivates employees, what's important to them, and how they actually behave.

2. To prioritize the organization's actions based on objective data. Rather than relying on subjective information or best guesses, you can gather objective information to make sound, data-driven decisions to help allocate scare resources.

3. To provide a benchmark. Surveying provides a snapshot of the employees and their attitudes about your survey problem at a certain point in time. This benchmark helps you establish a baseline from which you can compare whether attitudes and perceptions relative to the survey problem improve or worsen over time.

4. To communicate the importance of key topics to employees. Communicating with employees about the survey topic allows for deeper insights into the survey problem and signals the organization's eagerness to listen to employees and act on their concerns.

5. To collect the combined brainpower and ideas of the workforce. Employees have different perspectives than management yet sometimes cannot find or do not have access to a way to communicate those perspectives. Access their knowledge to improve decision making, overcome challenges, and seize opportunities.

Two Bad Reasons to Conduct a Survey

1. To sell employees an idea. Some organizations use a communication technique referred to as "push polling." A push poll looks like a survey, but the questions guide the respondent down a path to a specified conclusion. If you are designing a survey with the goal of convincing employees of a certain point of view, you're not focused on learning or listening. A survey isn't the right tool for you.

2. To solve problems in one easy step. A survey is a means to an end, not an end in itself. It's simply disrespectful to put out a survey and think you've done all you need to address morale or productivity issues. In fact, a survey isolated from other communications and actions could be more detrimental than helpful because a survey generates not only information but also expectations. The very act of surveying employees builds the expectation that there will be some changes that will improve their experience. See Chapter 3 for more about setting and handling these expectations.

Communicate within the Organization

Communication is very important with colleagues during the design phase. Enlist help now and you might get some feedback that will impact the design of the survey. See the following box for perfect phrases you can use to communicate design goals.

Perfect Phrases to Communicate Survey Goals

This survey ...

* is essential to facilitating development and organizational change

* signals to employees that management is committed to change

* allows the organization to focus on needs and leverage its strengths

* informs the organization on which actions may create problems for employees

* helps the organization identify inefficiencies

* provides management with employee feedback (both positive and negative) on the internal health of the organization

* measures the impact of current programs, policies, and procedures

* helps the organization allocate scare resources for maximum effectiveness

* can be used to motivate employees and improve job satisfaction

Chapter Three

All surveys generate data. Effective surveys generate actionable information. That is, they yield insights that can be translated into action. If an organization cannot make a direct link between the survey and some eventual action, it may as well not conduct the survey. Employees are justifiably demoralized when they conclude that their employer thinks so little of their opinions. They would rather the organization be honest and not go through the pretense of asking employees what they think. The bottom line: know that your management team is open to take action of some kind before you begin.

Achieving this presurvey confidence may take more time and energy than any other aspect of the survey process. Practitioners agree that it really is the make-or-break step. John Frehse of Core Practice LLC, a consultancy that specializes in scheduling shift work and surveys employees for each project, spends a significant amount of time with management before each survey to describe the issues it will address. His team works with executives to understand the business and come up with up to a dozen options for improving workforce efficiency. Before these options go to employees in the form of a survey, Frehse makes certain that management is willing to accept, fund, and implement every one of the options if the survey results support it. If an option is off the table for management, it's not proposed to employees. There's no opportunity for management to backpedal. His advice: "Manage expectations every second of the day. We lay hot-button issues right out on the table and talk about how they will shape the coming weeks. Management has to know and agree up front about every aspect of the survey process. If they don't, we don't move forward with the survey. It's as simple as that."

Executive coach and organizational development consultant Leila Bulling Towne agrees: "I gain their commitment to action before conducting any employee survey. You have to know they are willing to do something based on the feedback." And what if that feedback ends up being about their personal performance? "Powerful employee surveys often expose weaknesses in the management team or in individual leadership performance," says Bulling Towne. "I make sure that the top people know they may hear some tough stuff." How does she prepare them for what may end up being a shock? "Before the survey," she explains, "I talk to individual clients about how the survey will speak to their personal credibility. I encourage them to be introspective before they have that external input. I'll ask, 'What do you think are the challenges to your personal credibility right now?' This one-on-one work opens the door for personal change based on employee survey feedback."

Kevin Murphy, managing partner at the marketing communications firm Trone, says that before an employee survey, the partners agree together about the survey process and their openness to action. They talk explicitly about how they are going to follow up with employees to learn more about the issues raised in a survey. "We have agreement around our table before we go any further," says Murphy. "We know we'll be busy and will need to be great listeners. We make that commitment before we start."

Bulling Towne has found that the more highly educated or metropolitan the workforce, the higher the expectations that management will actually follow through on their input. While that high level of expectation can be daunting, the flipside is that this employee population is more likely to complete the survey.

Difficult Conversations

We know it's difficult to have these conversations with upper management. Consider three strategies. First, try to begin and end the conversation with the potential impact on business results and the bottom line. Making that link explicit can break down all kinds of communications barriers. Second, start with a limited, closed-ended survey that doesn't leave the door open for out-of-the- blue options or personal feedback to management. You won't generate insights that are as deep, but you'll build comfort with and awareness of the process. Third, consider bringing in a consultant, facilitator, or coach. An outsider usually brings a sense of safety, objectivity, and credibility that increases transparency and action. Remember that you can bring in resources for just one part of the process and still do the rest yourself.

It's not just about raising the expectation for action. It's also about limiting management's expectation about the power of one survey. Employee surveys are part of the solution to problems, not the only tool you'll need. While a regular commitment to well-designed employee surveys contributes to employee engagement, one survey alone, no matter how good, isn't going to turn around a history of disengagement. Employees have great insight because they are often closer to customers, products, and processes than management, but they often aren't exposed to the big picture that links ideas together. Their input may need to be titrated with a broader view of the business. And brace your management team for inconsistencies across the organization. The singular "staff" is made of hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of individuals. You may end up hearing a cacophony of voices instead of one "employee" voice. Let management know that the message may not be clear and that they may have to let down some staff when they respond to others.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Perfect Phrases for Writing Employee Surveysby John Kador Katherine J. Armstrong Copyright © 2010 by John Kador and Katherine J. Armstrong. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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