The employee survey:

How the most engaged organisations do it

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Contents

03 Introduction

04 Why should I improve my survey?

06 How often should I survey my employees?

07 Ideal employee survey programme - a combined approach

08 What should you look for in an employee engagement partner?

09 What can your organisation do?

10 Developing a tailored programme: what should be involved?

11 Stage #1 Planning and design

13 Stage #2 Survey

14 Stage #3 Post survey: Visualising the results

17 Stage #4 Post survey: Analysing the results

19 Stage #5 Action planning

21 Stage #6 Implementation

22 Conclusion

23 About People Insight

24 Give our employee engagement tool a try

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Most organisations understand the benefits of measuring employee engagement, and trying to improve it.

However, as only a third of UK workers say they are “engaged1”, and with the figures remaining stubbornly low, just doing a survey and agreeing to a handful of actions (which get de-prioritised over time) isn’t going to cut it. CEOs question the investment, waiting for the theoretical benefits to play out, and enthusiasm fizzles out.

So is there a better way to improve engagement?

There is no “one size fits all” answer to this – but we’ve honed our advice based on our research and experience working with hundreds of organisations across every sector.

Who is this guide for?

This eBook has been created to help anyone who wants to use employee surveys to improve engagement for the benefit of their business in the long-term – whether you’re an HR manager, leader or CEO.

1Kenexa, 2009 http://engageforsuccess.org/employee-engagement-the-evidence

Introduction

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There are a couple of main reasons why you may need to look at improving your survey:

1. There are engagement goals that you are not reaching

2. You feel that levels of e.g. talent, retention, innovation or customer satisfaction need to improve

These are all things that can be addressed, providing the survey process is conducted in the best possible way.

Carrying out a survey vs. an engagement programme

Historically, the answer to improving employee engagement was to just “do a survey”. Tackling the lowest scoring question in the survey seemed like an obvious route to success.

However, to really improve engagement we need to probe for real insights in the figures.

Insights that are going to make a clear difference to our people, to organisational outcomes such as talent retention and productivity.

We then need a roadmap to success with clear actions along the way.

Of course, buy in from employees, leaders and stakeholders is also a vital step.

The recommended approach is to have a tailored programme - scalable for different budgets - with elements selected to meet the strategic needs of each organisation. It should be backed by intelligent analytics, which go beyond the mere reporting of scores, and dig deeper into the patterns and meaning behind the results.

Why should I improve my survey?

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Why should I improve my survey? (continued)

A tailored engagement programme:

1. Planning and design

2. Survey

3. Visualise results

4. People analytics

5. Action planning

6. Implementation

• Scaled for different budgets

• Elements selected to meet strategic needs of the organisation

• Buy in from employees, leaders and stakeholders is vital.

Benefits and requirements

of a tailored engagement

programme:

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Annual survey

Immediate or regular information?

Detailed, in-depth, information?

What type of information do you need?

Fastest Most detailed

Weekly survey Monthly survey Quarterly survey

Instant feedback for monitoring sentiment and questioning on specific issues

Immediate feedback for a quick response

Great for having a continual stream of dialogue with your people. An alternative to other social tools you already have in place – (Slack, Yammer etc.)

Data is created continuously – however resource is needed to review and respond regularly

Risk of burnout: if employees get bored doing it, response rate will go down or their hurried answers won’t be accurate

Risk of people only responding in the moment when they are really happy or really fed up (bimodal distribution)

Detailed feedback for comprehensive questioning and in-depth understanding

In-depth insights form the basis of strategic change

Provides a stake in the ground. An annual process can fit with the organisation’s business planning cycle

Feels ‘important’ - you can focus on it for good response rates, and focussed energy for action planning

You may be acting on ‘old news’ if you don’t act fast enough on the results

You need to plan your survey timing carefully to take account of other events

How often should I survey my employees?

A key principle to consider in response to this is to “only survey at a rate you can make change happen”.

If you fail to do this, busy employees may get disheartened. They’ll think you didn’t listen to them, even though they invested their limited time to tell you how they felt. The process will unravel.

When it comes to survey frequency, there’s a full spectrum of frequency possibilities. The infographic below weighs up the various pros and cons:

How frequently should you run your survey?

Weekly or monthly surveys Quarterly or annual surveys

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Ideal employee survey programme - a combined approach

The best way to measure will depend on your organisation. Ideally you would:

1. Measure in depth, less frequently for strategic review and to plan change. For example:

Use approximately 35 questions

Involve the whole organisation

Provide in-depth reporting and analysis

and

2. Monitor frequently, a few questions to see if changes from your in-depth survey have made a difference.

For example:

Use approximately 5-15 questions

Involve a sample group within the organisation

Provide a comparative analysis of the “then and now”

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What should you look for in an employee engagement partner?

When evaluating potential providers of employee engagement surveys, consider if they can best provide you with the following:

• A methodology that meets your organisation’s unique needs, taking into account your workforce, company culture, experience and your desired outcomes

• An approach based on robust evidence and experience – so you are measuring the right things in the most effective way

• Surveys that are easily manageable; short not long, easy to complete, on an accessible platform (i.e. available on any device, or even paper where necessary)

• Ability to guarantee anonymity and respect

• Results that are easy to communicate to managers and staff

• Data visualised clearly in dashboards, meaning line managers don’t have to spend hours analysing results

• Clear understanding of which actions to prioritise in order to improve engagement and organisational outcomes, based on robust analysis

• Help to lead your people through the action planning and change process – involving everyone from board members to line managers

• Someone that makes the process as simple as possible!

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What can your organisation do?

When setting up your employee engagement programme, there are some key approaches you’ll want to consider:

• Get your leaders to visibly drive engagement, so everyone else considers it a priority

• Commit to transparency in the process and results to maintain trust and honesty

• Have a two-way dialogue with your employees; invite them to input into the process and ask them questions along the way

• Get your internal comms teams geared up for the journey to maintain energy and momentum

• Make the commitment to take action (and fast) so everyone feels the difference

- At the organisation AND local levels, embed good practice as well as reviewing the negatives

It’s easier to get leaders to prioritise employee engagement efforts when there is clear evidence in your organisation’s data to back it up.

For example: We analysed survey results for a multi site retailer. Statistical linkage analysis showed that managers in higher profit stores were better at coaching, giving feedback and creating a sense of career opportunities.

This gave business leaders a clear steer on what management training to prioritise in lower profit stores.

For information on analysing results see page 18.

Top tip:

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Developing a tailored programme: what should be involved?

It is vital to see the survey itself as only one part of the overall employee engagement programme.

At People Insight we break this down into six stages, as shown below. We will focus further on each of these stages throughout the rest of this eBook.

We recommend shifting a large proportion of the effort from ‘doing the survey’ to ‘doing something about the results’.

This will reap the greatest benefits in the long-term. Statistics have shown that when employees see and feel what has happened as a result of their input, belief in the survey process goes up 20%2.

2 Data from People Insight clients’ surveys.

3. Visualise results

2. Survey

4. People analytics5. Action planning

1. Planning and design

6. Implementation - doing something about the results

6Stages

FOCUS EFFORT HERE:

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Stage #1

The key factor for the planning and design stage is to determine what problems your organisation faces, that you want survey data to help solve.

Engage your leaders

Senior leaders may have particular business objectives that your survey partner can help address in the survey and analytics stages - e.g. around customer satisfaction, employee turnover or profitability.

‘What problem do we need to solve?’ becomes the question, not ‘What is our engagement score?’

Engage senior leaders in your plan by highlighting the business and people benefits of the programme, and ensure they are fully briefed and enthused about the part they have to play.

Frequency

Start with the end in mind – be realistic about how many actions you can take, how quickly you can respond to the result, and how often you can carry out changes.

In short:

• Provide your leadership team with hard stats on how engagement will boost the business (your provider should be able to provide you with real case studies)

• Make sure actions from the engagement programme are on their agenda in company-wide updates

• Work with your engagement partner to create indicators which measure how your business has been affected by employee engagement

Engage your staff

If you’ve not had an employee survey before, or there is a lot of cynicism about the organisation’s desire or ability to change, invite staff to workshops or focus groups which allow them to have their input and answer their concerns.

Doing this tackles any objections upfront, and demonstrates transparency within the business.

“ Buy-in from our senior

leaders can make a world

of difference. To support

the employee engagement

agenda, senior leaders should

ensure the organisation has a

clear strategic narrative that

everyone can understand

and buy into. Secondly, all

leaders need to be consistent

and lead by example; nothing

switches people off more than

leaders who say one thing

and do another.”

Robert Bridges, Communications Manager, Engage for Success

Planning and design

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Planning and design (continued)

Design your questions

Once you’ve asked your internal stakeholders what they want to achieve from the survey, you should share these discussions with your engagement partner.

There’s a great deal of expertise in survey design, and writing unambiguous, action-oriented statements that can be mapped to benchmarks and wider organisation data.

An experienced employee engagement survey provider will have an engagement model grounded in occupational psychology theory and best practice. They’ll be able to develop your questionnaire based on this expertise, whilst incorporating the themes agreed in your focus groups.

Planning demographics carefully at this early stage means you’ll be able to slice and dice your results by relevant measures, such as job role, department, length of service etc.

For example you can use demographics to check equality and diversity performance in your results - how engaged staff are in minority and majority groups.

Communicating your survey plan

Communicating the survey in the planning stage is vital. Your employees are much more likely to participate when:

• T hey know that the survey is coming up, and are aware of the deadline for completion

• They have had endorsement from senior leaders and respected colleagues

• They believe something will happen as a result of taking part

Establish who will be responsible for communicating your survey internally as early as possible, and create a distinctive brand for your survey.

Whether you communicate via a company social news-feed, gather everyone together for ‘town hall’ style briefings, or rely on coffee area posters, try to use a mix of familiar, trusted communication avenues, along with some fresh new channels to increase interest and awareness.

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The best way of sending out your survey will depend on your workforce; for example:

• Are they used to working on smart-phones?

• Do they use a lot of email?

• Are they offline and need to fill in a paper survey?

If you have effectively communicated the survey, and developed a succinct, easy to answer survey that has been distributed in the way(s) that suit your workforce, you increase your chances of achieving a good response rate.

Communication in the survey stage

Try to find a survey provider which tracks online completion rates during the survey window. Managers can be informed if their teams are showing a low response rate and give them a nudge.

Targeted reminder emails can also be sent by the provider, sending updates only to those who haven’t responded to the survey.

Stage #2Survey

Online real time

completion rates

help you see where

a nudge is needed.

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Today’s technologies should allow you to access the survey results via a visual online dashboard. This means you’ll be able to see your results clearly, and share them with others easily.

You should be able to intuitively:

• See your company’s overall engagement score

• Access external and historic comparisons

• Assess areas of strength and weakness

• See a prioritised “focus areas” list – i.e. ordered by the issues most strongly correlated with engagement

• View free text comments; organised by theme, so you can understand the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’ is said in the closed questions

You should be able to compare the data by division, team, or any other demographic variables, providing there is a minimum number of respondents within each group to ensure complete anonymity.

You should also have multi-level access so managers are able to login and see results for their own teams only. This will provide them with the focus on what they can do to improve.

The best tools also have “action planning” elements built in. This allows you to create and track actions virtually.

Stage #3Post survey: Visualising the results

An online dashboard

should visualise your

results clearly, enable

you to understand

insights quickly,

and focus energies

on action.

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TOP 5 / BOTTOM 5 QUESTIONS

75%An external company, People Insight were commissioned to undertake the survey to measure employees’ attitudes and beliefs concerning employee engagement issues.

The survey was completed and achieved a 66% response rate.

This summary gives you an overview of the results for the company.

Thank you for completing the survey!

ENGAGEMENT SCORE

77%vs. 52% Survey from 2008

SUMMARY

You are here comparedto other organisationssurveyed...

Job security

People / team

Working in aviation

Challenging, varied work

Dynamic, positive environment

Investment in infrastructure &

equipmentDivide between

management & staff

Physical work environment

Training opportunities

Pay improvements

SURVEY NAME: TOP LINE RESULTS

KEY THEMES

NEXT STEPS

Barley Mow Business Centre, Barley Mow Passage, London W4 4PH Tel: +44 (0)203 142 6511 Email: enquiry@peopleinsight.co.uk www.peopleinsight.co.uk

Now we have both the Employee Attitude Survey and People Strategy Workshops results, your views and ideas are being incorporated into the People Strategy for implementation later this year.

BEST THINGS WORKING HERE VS. ONE THING TO CHANGE

UK OVERSEAS

vs. 76% external benchmark

UNITED KINGDOM OVERSEAS

TOP 5

I am proud of the work I do

I enjoy my work

My manager trusts me to do a good job

My manager treats people fairly and with respect

I have the knowledge and skills I need to do my job

BOTTOM 5

My pay is linked to my performance and contribution

I think the pay I receive compares favourably with other employers in our industry

I have the equipment and resources I need to do my work properly

Communications are good between different teams

I have received the training and development I need to develop in my career in this company

AGREE

89%

89%

84%

78%

76%

DISAGREE

57%

54%

54%

49%

45%

YOUR BRANDING HERE YOUR LOGO

Post survey: Visualising the results (continued)

Infographics and videographics showing the top line survey results and next steps support transparency.

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Post survey: Visualising the results (continued)

What will different stakeholders want to see?

Senior leaders Line managers All staff

Overall engagement scores Overall engagement scores summary and senior leaders’ reaction

Overall engagement scores summary and senior leaders’ reaction

Significant variations between divisions / demographics that highlight strengths and weaknesses

How my team compares with the rest of the organisation

How my team compares with the rest of the organisation

Significant variances from historical data

How my team compares with our historical scores

How my team compares with our historical scores

Areas of strength and weakness that most strongly correlate with engagement, for potential action areas

Areas of strength and weakness in my team that most strongly correlate with engagement, for potential action areas

Areas of strength and weakness in my team that most strongly correlate with engagement, for potential action areas

What happens next: further detailed analysis requirements, action planning time-scales for leaders and the rest of the organisation, comms plan for the rest of the organisation

What happens next: how I should lead action planning for my team?

What happens next: action planning time-scales for leaders and the rest of the organisation

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During the planning stage you will have thought about the issues that you want your survey to uncover.

Although highlights such as “Greatest Improvements” and “Bottom 10” scores are a start, in today’s world of big data they are not enough.

Start by identifying key trends

Identifying simple correlations within your data are a good start, and will show you which questions in your survey are most strongly related to engagement in your organisation.

In the example below, the two statements are strongly correlated with engagement. However as only 44% and 49% of staff agree with them, it would indicate that these are potential areas for action.

Then look beyond the immediate data

Whilst key trends will appease certain parties, more powerful analysis using inferential statistical methods are a rapidly growing area in people analytics.

For example, this could give you a greater understanding of:

• Why key talent leaves the business

• Which engagement levers have an impact on customer satisfaction

• How you need to focus engagement for new recruits vs. your long-service employees

• What makes your top players great, allowing you to base your hiring criteria on the findings

• Whether your key leadership or coaching programmes are having an impact on engagement

By integrating engagement surveys with your existing HR data, you can make links, patterns and predictions from your results and develop higher quality insights for your organisation.

Directors provide effective leadership of ABC

I believe action will be taken as a result of this survey

Stage #4 Post survey: Analysing the results

44% 43% 13%

37% 14%

R

R 49%

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Post survey: Analysing the results (continued)

Communication in the analysis stage

Your senior leaders will be very interested in the impact of engagement factors on business outcomes, but won’t necessarily be interested in wading through the detailed statistics.

An experienced employee engagement partner should be able to provide clear insight and meaning from the results, helping you to understand what to do next, and to develop a plan for you to get there.

When communicating findings to your employees, it’s not necessary to emphasise the detailed analysis. Instead, use the outputs to support why certain actions have been prioritised by the business.

Statistical analysis of survey results and business data to discover drivers of NPS

A large hospitality client needs to work on 3 drivers to increase customer NPS:

Highly correlated driver from engagement survey

We review customer comments

Managers are fair and respectful

We have clear team goals

Survey scores in high NPS venues

16% higher

9% higher

5% higher

Statistical analysis of survey results and business data to discover drivers of profit

A multi site retail client needs to work on 3 drivers to improve net margin:

Highly correlated driver from engagement survey

Coaching managers

Managers give feedback

Career aspirations are met

Survey scores in high profit stores

5% higher

4% higher

4% higher

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There’s little point making the effort to find out how engaged your staff are if you don’t set actions for areas of improvement (and celebrate successes.)

When planning your programme, make sure you have a concentration of resources for this crucial activity. This allows you to move quickly from digesting the results of your survey and analysis, to deciding on appropriate follow-up actions. You may do action planning periodically, or on an ongoing basis, depending on what frequency you run your survey.

How can you manage action planning effectively?

Initially, think about actions at the organisation level and consider implementing:

• A small number of strategic programmes

• Some quick wins to set an example and show progress

Getting an expert facilitator to run workshops for your senior team is a great way to start the process.

As well as leadership establishing their priorities, you’ll want teams to take initiative and act on their own specific results.

How do you work with team managers?

It’s crucial that your managers buy into the action plan and be capable of making changes, whilst being able to lead their teams through the process. Your survey provider should be able to help you with this.

To support managers, it is a good idea to run workshops to help them:

• Understand what engagement is, what factors drive it and which of those factors they can most influence as a line manager

• Be confident using their survey data to drive change

• Learn practical tools and techniques that they can apply to improve engagement

• Review their team survey results and make a personal action plan to improve or sustain engagement levels in their team

• Develop peer to peer support for their own action plans to improve implementation success

• Be able to engage their team in wider action planning following the survey results

Stage #5Action planning

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Action planning (continued)

Action planning checklist

Q. Schedule action planning workshops at each appropriate level. The frequency will depend on what frequency you run your survey

Q. Make sure your survey supplier provides results in an easy to interpret, actionable format

Q. Appoint a good workshop facilitator to channel energies into decision making

Q. Empower teams to create their own celebrations and actions at a local level

Q. Encourage best practice sharing so teams can share scores and learn from each other what they do to achieve them

In depth focus groups and reporting

Just as “open comment” questions in the survey add another dimension to data collection, post-survey focus groups are becoming increasingly popular. These allow organisations to get valuable and rich input from their employees, while demonstrating a commitment to listening to everyone in the business.

These focus groups can be used to dig more deeply into key areas of interest that came out of the survey, or to involve employees in developing strategic plans for change.

When focus groups are managed by an external provider they bring more objectivity, and encourage participation from employees. This should result in a qualitative report being produced from the data collected.

Communication in the action planning stage

Letting employees know about the changes you have made, or are planning to make, is vital to improving engagement. Some of the ways action planning can be communicated include:

• “You Said – We Did” posters

• Planning within teams

• Guides to effective team action planning and FAQ’s

• Online action planning tools

Once leaders have agreed their actions, share them with the rest of the organisation via whichever route you prefer. Encourage others to share which actions have been prioritised across the organisation.

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Stage #6Implementation

You’ve made the plans – it’s now time to make the changes.

Here are some key tips to help along the journey:

• Linking actions to existing projects, business and people plans will help get them implemented more quickly

• Making “Survey action progress” a standing item in company and leadership meetings, your social media feeds and other business comms ensures the profile stays high

• Use the tools – including the action planning tracker in your dashboard (if you have it) to monitor progress

• Celebrate achievements and encourage your teams to share best practices

Once you’ve started to implement change, review staff reaction, via pulse surveys with a small sub-group of staff looking at a particular issue, or via your constant listening channels.

An action stamp shows people which items in

your internal comms came from survey feedback

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The survey process described in this ebook can be efficiently managed by:

• Engaging senior leaders from the outset

• Keeping the survey on the internal comms radar. Ensuring ‘what problem do we need to solve?’ is the question, not ‘What is our engagement score?’

• Appointing a supplier who can help with all aspects of the survey process

Using an experienced engagement partner can help take away much of the hard work from you, allowing you to focus on improving engagement and performance for your business.

If you are considering how to run your employee engagement programme, contact us today on 0203 142 6511 or enquiry@peopleinsight.co.uk to find out how easy it is to get started with People Insight.

Conclusion

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We are a specialist consultancy in organisational development and employee engagement.

We have over 20 years’ experience running employee engagement programmes, developing powerful insights from the data and leading clients through action to deliver real organisational change.

Our approach works: our clients improve their engagement scores on average by 7% after working with us, and their employees are 20% more likely to feel that something will happen as a result of the survey.

As a result of our help, our clients have improved customer satisfaction, reduced staff turnover, increased attendance and enhanced the skills of leaders and managers.

“ We asked People Insight to do the roll

out and deliver the results back to our

management team. It gave the whole

process more gravitas as they are the

experts in this area.

Thanks to People Insight we are

more connected to our employees

than ever, with a clear agenda

for improvement.”

Sarah Sayles, HR Director at EnServe

About People Insight

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Interested in how employee surveys could improve engagement at your business? See for yourself how easy it is to use our survey tool.

Give our employee engagement tool a try

For more information or to contact us:

W: peopleinsight.co.uk | T: 0203 142 6511 | E: enquiry@peopleinsight.co.uk

People Insight, Barley Mow Business Centre, Barley Mow Passage, London, W4 4PH