Important Considerations for an In-House Staff Survey

 Important Considerations for an In-House Staff Survey

I have a long history of experience working for major corporations. The HR and IT divisions of these companies were quite sizable. It was inevitable that they would make use of these extensive resources while conducting a staff survey. Less than 25% of employees would respond to surveys. No one paid much notice because these response rates were thought to be normal, and there were a few comments that complained about how low it was.

Here I am, on the opposing side, today. In my nine years of experience, I have helped businesses with a wide range of staff surveys. I got the chance to chat with human resources professionals from multiple companies not long ago. These companies were making their own employee surveys, therefore they were searching the web for questions to include. They intended to conduct their own survey once they had compiled these questions.

This strategy doesn't seem too far-fetched at first. Nevertheless, I requested that the HR team take the following into account.

Protecting Personal Information

Confidentiality and privacy is a major concern for employees when it comes to employee surveys. We have found that the majority of employees are not very comfortable with the idea that their company's computers may save their survey responses. The fact that company employees are handling the data and performing the analyses persists regardless of how much precautions a corporation takes to prevent unauthorized access to the survey results. Someone has already broken the seal on confidentiality. There are plenty of openings for abuses under these conditions.

A few years back, Entec encountered a situation where the company president expressed his readiness to proceed with an employee survey. However, as he was footing the bill, he insisted on having access to both the database and the report that would be created from the survey. Giving up on this endeavor was our only option. The employees' privacy and confidentiality could not be guaranteed with absolute certainty.

When employees are informed that a third party would handle the entire survey process, their fears might be greatly reduced. Entec informs employees about the firewall between the organization and Entec Corporation in the pre-survey emails, for instance. Our computers are off-limits to all employees. Our database is password protected so that no one from your firm may view it. We categorically refuse to comply with any special demands made by upper-level management or anybody else inside the organization to view the data. I should mention that this has occurred twice in the last nine years. Protecting people's privacy and confidentiality is of the utmost importance. Staff surveys have their advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, workers are always happy to offer suggestions. Conversely, if people even have a nagging suspicion that their privacy is at risk, they will either not engage or give dishonest responses.

Rates of Response
The findings will be more statistically valid if the response rate is high. A big database is the result of a high response rate. With a big database, you may do data cuts that go deep into the company and provide useful insights. You can only do a cursory study with such a tiny database; it won't be able to pinpoint exactly where you need to make improvements. So, getting a lot of people to fill out an employee survey is crucial. The response rates for the Entec survey, for instance, have ranged from 82% to 95%. Because of this, in-depth analysis is possible, which is above average. The response rate for staff surveys conducted by the organization is usually 30% or lower, according to the data.

Build a Survey

Creating an employee survey entails three distinct steps: formulating the questions, establishing a scoring methodology, and organizing the questions. The idea that the efficiency of the analyzes phase is driven by question organization was one that we adopted at Entec. Thus, the questions needed to be structured to represent the desired outcome if we wanted the analyzes phase to clearly lead to recommendations for follow-up implementation. The employee engagement modeling that Entec carried out as a first stage in developing the survey was driven by this line of thinking. The survey questions were inserted into the proper sections of the model once the modeling was finished. You can find a more detailed description of this method in the section on Reliability and Validity that follows. The questions do, in fact, follow a specific sequence. Because of this hierarchy, we are able to conduct thorough analyses and make actionable suggestions for subsequent steps.

Analyzing Survey Results

Analyses based on survey questions are vital, but the questions themselves are secondary. Providing percentages is just one part of the survey analysis. Statistics need to be interpreted in the analysis. How, for instance, are the results of one set of questions related to those of another set of questions? Concerning the motivation and performance of employees, some questions are substantially more crucial than others.

One company's data shows a correlation between the following leadership claims and the statement "There is little to no office politics and gossip": "Appointedly handles underperforming individuals," "Resolves conflicts in a fair and appropriate manner," and "Leads by example and action" are all parts of the job description. Through this kind of research, additional leadership characteristics that surfaced repeatedly were shown to be crucial to the culture of this specific firm. Based on the results of the investigation, the top leadership behaviors influencing best practices were identified. As a result, the HR team had a short list of behaviors that required their immediate attention. All employees in the organization who were responsible for supervision were evaluated based on how well they rated against these behaviors in the survey report.

While these claims may be true in certain companies, they may not be in others. Depending on the culture of the firm, they can differ slightly. Taken as an example, studies have revealed that toxic workplaces are characterized by high levels of office gossip. Here, the results of this sort of analysis reassure the business that it is taking the correct steps to reduce rumors and boost productivity.

Consistency and Veracity

Gathering questions and constructing a survey is something anyone can do. But this begs the question. In what ways can you guarantee that the questions are accurate and trustworthy? What this means is that when an organization makes its own survey, it should ask itself if it has the in-house expertise and resources to assess the survey's reliability and validity to make sure it will yield meaningful data.

Entec Corporation dedicated an entire year nine years ago to creating a set of questionnaires. Multiple steps were involved in the procedure. The initial stage was to bring together a diverse team of experts with backgrounds in areas such as clinical psychology, organizational development, leadership, and strategic management. Based on these models, this group produced questions. These were pilot tested with a large number of focus groups across multiple industries. We performed reliability analyses. We used principal component analyses. The surveys were revised after extensive analysis and pilot testing. To this day, we still use this iterative process to make sure our clients get surveys that are as effective as they can be.

Final thoughts

Do one of two things if you're unwell, in pain, and running a temperature. They have two options: take a fever or see a doctor. Taking a temperature does not provide them with nearly enough information to make an informed decision about how to intervene to improve their health. They can get helpful information and a plan for intervention from their doctor if they visit and undertake a battery of tests.

The process of surveying one's own employees is same. Complex human systems are organizations. Findings from an unproven employee survey with an unproven survey procedure and basic analysis will be comparable to taking a temperature. Taking the temperature more than once makes it harder to zero in on precise measures to boost performance. Because of this, motivation is reduced. Surveys of workers raise their expectations. Employee cynicism and decreased productivity occur when the post-survey process does not demonstrate any significant improvement.

In the event that you opt to carry out a survey, a thorough diagnostic will provide outcomes that indicate the execution of meaningful follow-up measures. The data necessary for the organization to proceed and accomplish its goals will be provided to it. To get useful results from an employee survey, you need to pay attention to the questions, the structure, the methodology, and the analysis and interpretation of the survey. An organization can't carry out a successful employee survey if they don't understand and account for the complexities of their employees' opinions and expectations.

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