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

 Twitter |  Facebook |  digg it |   delicious |   StumbleUpon |   LinkedIn |  reddit 

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.