Tips on Making Employee Survey Initiatives Successful (Part 5 of 5)

 

Other Suggestions for Employee Surveys

Over the last several weeks, we've already covered several tips on ways to make employee survey initiatives successful. Here are a few more suggestions that don't fit neatly into the previous topics, but are very important nonetheless:

• Get senior management endorsement. As mentioned earlier, senior management should drive the initiative, not HR and not a consultant. But "endorsement" means more than "Okay, let's do an employee survey." It means:
  
  
• Signing off on the employee survey content as providing data important to making the business strategies a reality
• Actively encouraging employees to participate in completing the survey and helping plan improvement actions
• Serving as role models for the important events that follow the delivery of the employee survey reports
• Providing support to subordinate line managers and holding them accountable
• Don't let the process get bogged down. There are two ways this sometimes happens:
  
  
• First, it takes many months to develop the employee survey instrument, and it consumes far too many internal resources in meetings, focus groups, etc. It shouldn't be that difficult. Determine the employee survey objectives, choose an item pool from a vendor that's on target, modify the items as appropriate, and get on with it.
• Second, the feedback process becomes unduly delayed because a top-down, cascading process is used (i.e., each level in the organization has to wait until the higher levels have processed and "digested" the data). A better approach is to give each manager at every level in the organization his/her employee survey report within 1-3 days of the survey close-out date. The managers then go through the feedback-action planning process, and report their planned actions upward.
• Ensure a high response rate. A very low response rate leads to managers discounting the results (e.g., "Only half of my employees responded, and their views probably don't represent how the total group sees things."). An even worse problem with a low response rate is that it may not be possible to generate meaningful employee survey reports for subgroups at lower levels in the organizational hierarchy. In addition to good communications in advance of the employee survey, other actions to improve the response rate include keeping the survey as short as possible, ensuring employees that their responses will be confidential, telling them the results will be shared with them, and sending reminder emails to non-respondents at established intervals.

A Final Comment

This series provides only a brief overview of some of the main points in making employee survey initiatives successful. There are many other points that could be made, and a good consultant with expertise in all phases of employee survey projects can help guide you through the process to maximize the value and avoid the many pitfalls companies often get trapped by. In addition to employee survey expertise and a solid technology for collecting survey responses and generating reports, the consultant should also provide a variety of templates, processes, training programs, etc. to make the employee survey process easy, fast and value added.

 

Tips on Making Employee Survey Initiatives Successful (Part 4 of 5)

 

Feedback-Action Planning Meetings

Earlier in this series of posts we described the feedback-action planning model as "valid data collected on employee perceptions being fed back to leaders in the business, and used to improve organizational effectiveness and morale/commitment." That's actually not the best description of the model when it's implemented in an optimal manner. Ideally, it's not just the "leaders" who receive and then act on the employee survey results, it's the whole team, with the leaders facilitating the process. This is an important distinction, and it represents another key tip on making employee survey initiatives successful: use the employee survey process itself, particularly feedback and action planning, as a way to get the employees engaged in improving things.

The most effective process works like this: (1) managers receive their reports, (2) they study the employee survey reports and identify key issues to share with the employees and get more detailed input, (3) they conduct feedback-action planning meetings with their employees, and (4) they involve the employees in making change happen in the unit. This approach is very powerful because it helps open communication channels and gets the whole work force involved in making the company better in terms of organizational effectiveness and quality of work life for employees.

In order for this approach to work well, however, the managers must have the skills necessary to perform the role described. The requisite skills development can be accomplished in several different ways, and it's not that difficult. Furthermore, the investment the company makes in training their managers to conduct constructive meetings, and to plan improvement actions based on quantitative employee survey data, will have significant payoffs as the managers apply these same skills in doing their "regular jobs."

In the final post in this series (next week), I'll offer up a few final suggestions that I believe will improve your next employee survey significantly - stay tuned!

Tips on Making Employee Survey Initiatives Successful (Part 3 of 5)

Employee Survey Feedback Reports

The employee survey reports are critical to successful survey initiatives because they summarize the employee survey results and provide the basis for identifying the best opportunities for implementing changes to improve organizational effectiveness and employee commitment/engagement. In a sense, they are the main "deliverables" from the vendor or internal personnel managing the survey project.

Here are a few tips related to the employee survey reports:

• Choose a employee survey vendor whose reports are easily interpreted by line managers. The primary statistic reported should be something they can easily understand and that has intuitive meaning (e.g., percent favorable or unfavorable). Employee survey reports should also clearly highlight the most significant results.
• Provide reports to line managers at all levels in the organization, down to first line mangers, if possible. As noted earlier, empowering managers with data to improve conditions in their units is a powerful way to reap the most benefit from the employee survey initiative.
• Ensure the survey reports provide clear answers to the questions line managers will have, such as:
  
  
  • What are the major strengths on which I can build?
  • What are the key opportunities for improvement?
  • How does my group compare with other groups in the organization?
  • What are the strengths/improvement opportunities in the subordinate groups below me?
  • What are the trends over time, and where are things getting better/worse?
  • What specific actions can I take to improve employee satisfaction and organizational effectiveness?

In regard to three of the preceding questions, note the following:

• First, internal normative comparisons are very helpful to managers in identifying strengths and improvement opportunities (much more so, in fact, than external normative comparisons).
• Second, how subordinate groups performed is only relevant when the person getting the employee survey report isn't a first-level manager, and trend results are relevant only when it's a repeat survey.
• Third, and most importantly, the ideal employee survey reports will not only provide information on strengths and areas needing improvement, but also practical suggestions on specific actions the managers can take to improve those areas most in need of improvement.

 

So how do you transition from insight to action?  Stay tuned for next week’s post as I outline a process for conducting feedback-action planning meetings.

Tips on Making Employee Survey Initiatives Successful (Part 2 of 5)

Steps in the Employee Survey Process

With the Feedback-Action Planning Model (covered in last week’s post) as our basis, let’s quickly dive into the process in more detail…

Here are a few tips for each of the eight basic steps in the employee survey process:

1.  Project planning. Employee survey projects often become bigger and more complex than is necessary, and they take longer than they should. We've seen few employee survey projects fail because they were too simple, but many fail because they became too complex. Keep things as simple and streamlined as possible. A sound project plan can help keep tasks within scope, and on schedule. Another thing that can help is to have one internal project manager for the employee survey, and not a committee. However, that project manager must still get input and buy-in from all the key stakeholder groups. The project plan should also specify which tasks will be performed by the consultant, if one is involved, versus internal resources.

2.  Employee survey development. Censeo’s white paper titled Developing an Effective Employee Survey provides a more in-depth discussion on this topic. The main points we'll reiterate here are to make sure the employee survey content is linked to what's important to the business, write items and the response scale that meet sound psychometric criteria, and keep the employee survey relatively short and focused.

3.  Prior communications. Communicate the employee survey objectives, and how the results will be used, well in advance of survey administration. Encourage the employees to participate, assure them that their responses will be anonymous, and state that the results will be shared with them (and, of course, you'll have to then do so!). It's more impactful if employee survey related communications come from a senior line executive than from HR; use multiple communications, not just a single memo or announcement. Good communications prior to the employee survey are the best way to increase the response rate.

If line managers will be expected to play a key role in using the employee survey results to make improvements (and that normally will be the case), then those expectations should be clearly communicated in advance. This will lay a good foundation for accountability later.

4.  Employee survey administration. These days, most companies are using technology in some fashion (e.g., Internet-based survey platforms) for reasons of speed, cost and ease of implementation, and they usually use a vendor for employee survey administration and report generation. Our main tip for this step is to select an employee survey vendor whose platform can fully meet your needs. If paper-based administration will also be required for some employees, make sure the vendor can efficiently and quickly process the off-line surveys, and create an integrated database at the end of the campaign.

5.  Report generation. Good survey reports are absolutely critical to a successful employee survey initiative. Because of the importance of this step, our tips are covered in a little more detail in next week's post. The only point we'll make here is that the survey reports should be generated within 1-3 days after the survey closeout date, not weeks or months. "Old data" don't have credibility, and the whole initiative loses momentum.

6.  Feedback and communications. Once the employee survey has been administered, and reports generated, feedback and communications often occur in two ways. First, a summary of the overall company results is shared with employees via the company newsletter or some other media. Second, and this is an enormously powerful method leading to change, line managers conduct feedback meetings with their employees. Tips for this step are also discussed in more detail in part 4.

7.  Action planning. Improvements in some survey areas are best addressed systemically on a company-wide basis (e.g., the need to improve medical claims processing). However, most areas surfaced by the employee survey are best addressed by line managers at various levels in the organization, hopefully with a high degree of employee involvement. There are many tips one could give line managers regarding this step (which are covered in training), but probably the most important is to focus on the 2-4 improvement opportunities that are most important, and not try to take on too many actions at the same time.

It's helpful to document action plans because it increases the likelihood that the actions will be taken, it makes it easier to monitor progress, and the plans can be shared with others (e.g., line managers with their bosses). The format for the documentation isn't particularly important, as long as it includes goals (areas to be addressed), tasks, responsibilities and target dates.

8.  Implementation. Action plans are of no benefit if they aren't implemented. Managers should be held accountable for making change happen based on the survey results, and be given the support and resources they need. A perennial problem in this phase of survey initiatives is that line managers don't have enough time for survey-related tasks because they're too busy meeting the demands of their "real jobs." The solution is to integrate the survey actions with their other responsibilities, and make them just as important as other areas where the managers are accountable.

We've already given you the most important tip, and here's the second most important, which is actually just another way of thinking about the first: strive to get every manager in your company to make at least two positive changes based on the survey results. Even if you're only 50% successful on this goal, the survey initiative will have profound and long lasting benefits to the organization. It really doesn't matter whether the actions are primarily aimed at organizational effectiveness issues or employee commitment/engagement issues — actions in either domain will have a significant bottom line impact.

 

OK – a lot of ground covered this week.  Next week we’ll shift our attention to the reporting of survey results.

Tips on Making Employee Survey Initiatives Successful (Part 1 of 5)

Employee surveys can be a powerful way of improving organizational effectiveness and increasing commitment and retention. However, employee survey initiatives are often not as successful as they might be. Over the next five blog posts, we'll explore ways to make employee surveys more successful in terms of an overall feedback-action planning model, and suggestions for each of the steps in a survey project.

Feedback-Action Planning Model

 

The model shown above has been associated with employee survey research for more than 50 years. It is based on the concept that valid data collected on employee perceptions can be fed back to leaders in the business, and used to improve organizational effectiveness and morale/commitment. This embodies the most important tip we can offer on making employee surveys successful: focus the entire initiative around making change happen in the organization - systemic change for broader issues, and actions taken by line managers in their work units. This may seem too obvious a point to emphasize, but often employee surveys don't result in much real change because companies don't follow through on the action planning and implementation phases.

Here are a few other key points about the model:

• Data should be collected on areas related to the employee survey's objectives - usually a combination of organizational effectiveness issues and employee commitment issues - and be tied in with the business' strategies.
• Line managers at all levels in the organization play an active role in identifying and implementing improvement actions. They must be given the resources and support they need (including skills training), and be held accountable. It should be a management-driven, not an HR-driven, process. Most importantly, the employee survey process should not be a consultant-driven process, although consultants can play a facilitation role, and efficiently collect and process the survey data.
• A high degree of employee involvement throughout the initiative will increase the likelihood of positive change occurring, and of the employee survey process itself having positive benefits. The mindset should be one of "we're all in this together and have a shared responsibility for success," versus the employees thinking, "we've told management our views, let's wait and see what they do about them.

In next week's post, we dig more specifically into the steps in conducting a quality employee survey process.

Are External Norms in Employee Surveys Useful? (PART 2 of 2)

Last week I presented the case for and against external norms. This week I present my perspective on who wins the argument.

In my opinion, the value of external norms is a bit overrated, and sometimes results in companies achieving less, not more, positive change as a result of employee survey initiatives. Too often, companies don't ask the right questions, or use an inappropriate response scale, only because they want to make normative comparisons. Worst of all, norms can lead to complacency when managers and HR professionals fail to act on improvement opportunities because they conclude, "We're no more negative than the average."

However, external norms are not without some value. Censeo collects normative data on 100 key items when clients use some of those items, with either identical wording or essentially the same meaning, and the identical response scale (5-point agree-disagree scale). In those cases, there can be a one-to-one normative comparison on equivalent items, but the greater value is being able to help clients understand the relative relationships among the items (e.g., on average, how much lower are employees on opportunities for advancement than on satisfaction with the work itself?).

In fairness to the "For" side of the argument, I do point out that I have cast the whole discussion assuming that line managers at various levels in the organization are involved in the employee survey process - getting employee survey reports on their people, planning improvement actions, etc. When that kind of survey model is used, the external norms shouldn't even be shared with lower-level managers, because internal norm comparisons are much more useful, and it would be confusing to show both. However, if the purpose of the employee survey is only to take a temperature check of the total company, and not report results for lower organizational levels, then using external norms makes more sense. (Note that there can't be internal norms for the total company, but there can be for all groups below the total company.) However, I would strongly argue that trend comparisons, when they are available in repeat surveys, are far better than external norms.

If You're Going to Use External Norms...

Here are a few suggestions on using external norms in the most effective manner:

• Find the best norms you can, considering both accuracy and comparability, but don't get hung up trying to find the perfect norms. Other factors are much more important.
• If you can, and this is very difficult, find norms that are classified by employment status (exempt, nonexempt, hourly) and manager versus non-manager, in addition to industry, company size, etc.
• In addition to getting information on how employees in other companies responded on average, ask the survey vendor for data on how the best companies are doing.
• Focus on those survey areas where external comparisons will be most interesting. Issues related to pay, benefits and career opportunities are good examples.
• Report the norm comparisons only for the total company, and perhaps for major divisions, not for lower-level organizational units.

I offer two final comments on the subject of using external norms in employee surveys. First, the whole issue has become somewhat self-perpetuating, and for the wrong reasons. Employee survey process owners look for vendors who have norms because they think senior managers will ask the "but how do we compare?" question. Employee survey vendors build large normative databases, even though they may agree they're actually of limited value relative to other comparisons one could make. And then they tout the value of their norms, which further convinces clients that they need them. Second, in spite of the self-perpetuating point, the interest in external norms is decreasing each year. The reason is that companies are realizing they are less important than many other employee survey-related issues.

Are External Norms in Employee Surveys Useful? (PART 1 of 2)

When discussing employee survey or engagement survey solutions with potential clients, I often get the question "do you have external norms?"  While we do have external norms, I'm convinced most clients don't really understand what they are asking for, why they believe they need them, and how they would use external norms to better understand their survey results. In this week's post I'll present both sides of the argument - for and against external norms - and then next week provide my opinion on where I stand on the issue and why.    

Let's deal with some of the basics first....

What Are External Norms?

Employee survey vendors collect data on employee perceptions from different companies over time, sometimes on similar topic areas. The term "norm" refers to the average of those perceptions or effective responses to particular questions. They are "external" in the sense that they come from outside the company conducting a current survey. The underlying premise is that normative comparisons are helpful in understanding the results from the current survey.

Making normative comparisons is intuitively appealing. In many aspects of personal life and in business situations, we rely on such comparisons. When we list our homes for sale, we refer to market data to know what the price should be. When we determine what the compensation for a job should be, we collect data on what other companies are paying for similar jobs. If the turnover rate in our call center is 30%, we look externally in our industry to see if this is high or low.

The Case For External Norms

These are the main arguments made in favor of using external norms in employee surveys:

• Norms are important in understanding what's really positive or negative. For example, if 40% of the employees are not satisfied with their pay, is that dangerously low and something that should be addressed? A company might feel differently if normative data indicated that 40% was on par with other companies, versus the average being in the 30% range.
• Norms help overcome a problem with ranking. Normative data can help companies prioritize their actions and resource allocation. Employees are typically less favorable on some areas (e.g., pay satisfaction, opportunity for advancement) than they are on other areas (e.g., the work itself, areas related to supervision). Normative data can provide a context for understanding such differences, so effort is not misdirected to areas that really aren't significant problems.
• Making normative comparisons is aligned with other ways the business is measured. In a highly competitive business environment, companies feel a compelling need to check themselves, not just against their past performance, but also how they're doing relative to the competition. And competition in the labor market isn't just with other companies providing similar products and services, but any company drawing from the same labor pool for talent.

Based on my experience in conducting many employee surveys across different industries, I suggest there is an additional argument that's often made (though not always admitted) for including external norms. The person responsible for the employee survey initiative knows the question that is going to come from senior management: "Yeah, we can see all that, but how do we compare with other companies?" Even if it's not a particularly good question, it is going to be asked, and most project managers don't want to be left without an answer.

The Case Against External Norms

These are the main arguments made against using external norms in employee surveys:

• Norms aren't accurate or comparable. Unless the items and response scales in the normative database and the current survey are identical, the comparisons won't be accurate. Furthermore, to be comparable, the norms should be from the same industry (or same labor market), the same size companies, the same time period (i.e., not too old), and so forth. The requirements for accuracy and comparability are very rarely met, and oftentimes the norms aren't even close.
• Norms aren't available for current items. The items in the survey should be targeted at the most important areas to measure, and be linked to the business strategies. It is a grave mistake to compromise the objectives of the survey initiative by including some items, and omitting others, just because normative data are available.
• "We have our own standards of excellence." Some companies simply don't care whether they're better or worse than other companies on most areas covered in the survey; their own standards of excellence are more important. They want to identify opportunities for improvement and strive for continuous improvement, regardless of what other companies are doing.
• There are better ways to tell what's positive or negative. The rationale here is that other methods for looking at the data are preferable (internal normative comparisons, relative scores, trend comparisons, subgroup comparisons, etc.) to external norms for focusing attention on the most important issues. This is especially true in interpreting the survey results for all organizational units below the total company.

People questioning the value of external norms also make the point that if a high percentage of employees are negative in an area, those employees are still negative regardless of the perceptions of employees in other companies. Going back to the turnover example, if the turnover rate could be decreased from 30% to 25%, the company would reduce costs by an enormous amount. That's true regardless of whether the norm in the industry is 20% or 40%.

That's it for now... stay tuned next week for more on the value of external norms in employee surveys.