How do employee survey consultants support your survey process?

When it comes to improving employee engagement, sometimes you need to call in an expert employee survey consultant.

Survey consultants bring heaps of experience, lessons and ideas from other organisations to inspire your survey and help spark change. Combined with the expert support of your survey delivery team, you and your employee voice strategy are in safe hands.

We’ll forgive you if before now, survey season hasn’t been your favourite time of year. However with an expert survey consultant and delivery team by your side, the survey process can be a hassle-free (and even enjoyable) experience.

Below we take a look at 8 things that can go awry during an employee survey programme, and how an expert survey consultant will help avoid them.

• Managers aren’t kept in the loop

Your managers are closest to employees and have a big influence on attitudes and morale, including how people feel about your employee survey. If a manager sees the survey as separate to their role, they are unlikely to promote it to their teams. That means lower response rates, less useful feedback, and a lack of trust in the process. On the other hand, an engaged and informed manager will champion your survey and encourage their team to take part. These managers are also more likely to commit to post-survey actions and deliver meaningful change. Your employee survey consultant can help engage your managers with the process and provide training and support for action planning.  

• Your survey comms falls flat

A survey comms campaign is not just about telling people when and how to take part. It must also include why you’re running it, and what you will do with the feedback. Employees might be wary about anonymity, disenchanted by past surveys, or want to take part but feel they don’t have the time. These are all concerns to tackle in your comms. On top of that, you want an eye-catching brand, a creative survey name, and content that works for remote, deskless and office-based staff. It’s a lot to take on. An expert consultant, along with your delivery team, will advise on the right communication strategies for each stage of your survey programme to help craft a campaign that will hold people’s attention, answer any concerns, and urge them to take part.

• It launches at the wrong time

Your carefully prepared launch plan may be missed if staff are off for half term, busy with other scheduled events, or distracted by the World Cup. So, before picking your launch date, consider what else is going on in and around your business. Timings will be unique to your business however your expert survey delivery team can steer your decision based on the hundreds of successful surveys under their belt.  

• A poor response rate

Though participation rates vary, a good rule of thumb is that anything over 70% is good, over 80% is outstanding, and 90% is exceptional. Lower survey response rates make it difficult to act on your survey data since they represent a smaller number of people. They can also show a lack of trust in the survey process. There are a wide range of factors that influence response rates such as a high percentage of remote workers, accessibility issues, or concerns about confidentiality. Your employee survey consultant can work with you to tackle these blockers and increase participation. In addition, a real time participation tracker like the one on People Insight’s survey platform helps identify any groups, teams or departments in need of more attention.

• Employee surveys are seen as ‘an HR thing’

In most organisations, the employee survey is organised by the HR department. While it makes sense for one department to take the lead, the truth is that everyone has a role to play. Without the commitment of leaders and managers across the business you risk your survey being seen as a siloed event, without much importance outside of HR. This is in turn likely to lead to low response rates (see above), a lack of meaningful feedback, and a battle to push your action plans through. Bringing in a seasoned employee consultant at the start of your survey planning can help shift your survey from a one-off event to a strategic activity at the heart of your business.

Keep reading: How the University of Surrey revamped Colleague Voice strategy and embed their survey into life on campus. 

• Missing the bigger picture in your survey results

Understanding your survey results is the first step to acting. However, while interpreting the data it’s tempting to get fixated on individual comments or scores. Unfortunately this gets in the way of action. Preparing managers to review honest survey feedback is therefore vital to getting the most from your employee survey. Focusing on specifics can distract from the bigger picture that your survey results are painting. If this is a challenge for your organisation, People Insight’s consultant-led workshops might be the answer. Our experts will coach your managers and leaders on how to interpret survey results and which data, such as Key Drivers, they should look at first. 

• Only sharing the positive feedback.

As we’ve said above, survey data can be hard to swallow. It might challenge your own views, raise uncomfortable truths, or knock an initiative that you worked really hard on. Faced with results like this, organisations might choose to dismiss the ‘bad’ feedback and look at what to celebrate instead. Others are quick to share the positives but hold back poorer scoring areas until there’s a plan for improvement. The consequence is that employees don’t see their feedback reflected in the results. This can undermine their faith in your organisation and future surveys. To avoid this, your survey consultant will offer independent analysis of your survey results. In doing so, they’ll help your organisation focus on areas for improvement while also taking care to celebrate positive progress.

• Nothing happens next…

Your survey is only as good as what comes next. Often there’s a flurry of activity while your survey is live which fades once it’s over. Then HR feel frustrated about chasing people for updates. Managers struggle to find time for post-survey actions. Leaders have moved onto the next business priority. Worst of all, your employees feel resentful that their feedback has been ignored. People Insight’s expert consultants will work with you to keep up momentum throughout the survey process and ensure that your survey is followed up with meaningful action.

Keep reading: How Zeelo established employee surveys with our expert guidance