Healthy relationships in a company are one of the keys to success or failure. It depends on the employees how the brand will be promoted, profits will increase and user experience will improve. If someone from the team members is unpleasant to work with or someone fails to interact with other specialists or management, then there is a risk of a decrease in all production indicators. To prevent this, it is important to know about the attitude of all subordinates to their work and the company as a whole. To do this, it is enough to conduct surveys regularly. And about what they are needed for, and how to compose them correctly – we will understand in the article.
The Importance of Conducting Employee Surveys
Employee surveys are an important part of the company’s work because they can answer all your questions. Main advantages:
- Opportunity to get an honest answer. If you make the survey anonymous, you will get the whole truth that few people would normally share. This will improve your company by increasing employee satisfaction. Even if the questions are provocative, subordinates will be able to answer them without fear of dismissal or anger from the authorities, and you will finally get an objective point of view.
- Development of critical thinking. Questions can allow employees to look at the situation from different angles and make them think more broadly. Sometimes it’s good to ask a couple of deep questions that take a long time to think about.
- Improving the efficiency of employees and reducing staff turnover. The better you know your employees, the more likely you are to increase their love of work and desire to stay with the company for a long time.
- Detailed picture of leaders, employees, and their work. When you ask questions about who employees think is the best or who they think is a competent manager, you get the most objective picture possible. This will allow you to understand how well your departments work and find leaders among subordinates.
Do not neglect the opinion of your subordinates, they are ready to share their opinion with you by answering questions. It is enough to compose them correctly, conduct them regularly and constantly analyze them.
How to Write Engaging Employee Surveys
Asking questions directly and in person is never easy. Especially when you realize that the answer can be negative or fake. It is also difficult to interview 100 or more people at once. To do this, we created a convenient tool in the form of surveys, so that everything is as transparent and convenient as possible, both for the manager and employees.
1. Designate a Key Writer
Find one responsible for drafting the questions. Otherwise, the survey will combine several styles, which will make it unattractive and inconvenient. In order not to hire an additional employee or not to trust an incompetent employee to write a survey, delegate this task to online essay
writing professionals.
2. Limit yourself to a few questions
Nobody likes to spend a lot of time on surveys. Therefore, the fewer questions it contains, the greater the chance that employees will pass it with pleasure and answer truthfully to each of them. If there are too many of them, divide the survey and conduct it several times, with a small interval of several days. It is optimal to limit each of them to 10 questions.
According to research, a survey that takes more than 25 minutes weeds out 3 times more engagement than those that only take 5 minutes.
3. Determine the frequency
Along with the number of questions is the frequency of the survey in the company. Yes, you can even ignore the once-a-year option, because you will not receive the amount of information that will help you in your work. It is best to conduct serious surveys quarterly, and short or introductory surveys each time they are required.
4. Planning
Any action in the work area should be planned. Think about when is the best time to conduct a survey, how many employees should be surveyed, whether the same questions will apply to all departments, or if you should create a list for each. Planning for these little things will make the survey more relevant to employees, which will increase their engagement. For example, at the end of the working week, when everyone is already pretty tired, it is worth refusing to conduct all surveys, because. the only thing employees want is to rest.
5. Understand for survey purposes
Don’t just ask questions. You must understand why this is necessary, and what is the purpose. For example, you want to know if your employees like the management of the company, so you should ask questions about this goal only.
6. Optimal Format
First, work on the format. To facilitate the choice, you can conduct a survey among employees about this or choose it yourself. There are two main options when options are provided and the employee chooses one of them, and when there are just a few blank lines for an open answer. It is best to choose a mixed format when there is both one and the second option. Then the employee will independently choose how it is more convenient for him and honestly answer each question.
7. Brevity above all else
By writing questions into multiple sentences, you run the risk of confusing your employees. Everything should be clear and concise, without unnecessary phrases and distractions from the main topic. Short questions, consisting of several words, are easier for our brain to perceive, and eliminate the feeling of anxiety and fear of answering incorrectly.
8. Avoid leading questions
You will be comfortable answering the question “Are you not satisfied with the new head of the department?” or is it more comfortable to share an opinion when it sounds like “What do you think of the new head of the department?”. Most likely you will choose the second option, as will your employees. This is because leading questions are too critical and not suitable for objective surveys. They are used when no choice is left for an excellent opinion. In a regular interview, you should leave room for reflection and the transfer of personal emotions.
9. Be careful with unambiguous questions
Be careful with questions where there is an unequivocal answer of “yes” or “no”. For example, when you ask “Do you like the new company rules?” the employee simply cannot answer “no”. It is better to allow him to answer from the heart, honestly and in more detail. Minimize unambiguous questions.
10. Forget about ambiguity
One survey item should not contain two or more questions at the same time. For example, when you ask “Do you think we have a friendly team that provides proper working conditions?”, the employee will simply be confused and will not be able to answer the truth, because. should give two answers at once. This interrogative sentence contains two questions – “Do you think that we have a friendly team?” and “Does the company provide adequate working conditions?”. If you need to get an answer to each of them, just ask them separately. It will be easier for your employees to understand what they want to hear from them, and they will be able to give an objective answer.
Conclusion
We figured out how to properly compose questions for employees. Use simple rules to get detailed and truthful answers. But keep in mind that conducting a survey is not the only thing that is required of management. Analyze the received data and try to correct the shortcomings that have been identified.
