Why Employee Surveys Leave You Dead in the Water
Just think for a moment, how many surveys has your organisation carried out in the last two years? How many times have you sampled satisfaction, response times, completions or indeed any key performance indicator within the organisation?
Now think again. Of the surveys that you can remember, how many actually led to real action? What happened to the information apart from ending up in somebody’s report, submitted to somebody’s desk, somewhere in the organisation?
Survey fatigue has led to resentment which has led to rejection of the reasons to survey in the first place: unsatisfying wording, asking the wrong questions, using a general question line that is either too generic or too niche – thereby alienating a percentage of your workforce. Rejection gives way to negativity; which in turn leads to a reduced performance by the individual. Surveys that go nowhere and information that has little relevance to the provider has no result, no action, and no feedback.
Surveys are FAILING to deliver anything positive any more.
In our survey-society we collect data, comment upon it, and file it in the annals of our filing systems, never to be accessed again.
“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you always got.”
Mark Twain
To move on from the survey we need to find a new approach – one that will produce real actions and relevant feedback in response to asking for people’s opinions and feelings. Something that will engage the whole organisation, not simply categorise it. Something that will produce improvement plans as part of its process, not enter the blind alley of surveys and reports. Something that is relevant across the whole organisation, not just appeal to a small section of it.
We need a defined and repeatable framework that will serve to act as a follow on from the survey approach, to behave as a catalyst for change and improvement. We need to be fair to our people and improve their work experience.
In return you will get a shift to more positive attitudes and behaviours, which will lead to an increase in people’s performance, acceptance of change at the point of impact and a unified vision for the company shared by all.
Increased performance equals higher profits, enhanced productivity, improved efficiency and greater savings.
If you are still uncertain you could always carry out a survey of your colleagues to see what they think!
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