Five reasons to conduct employee surveys
“Research can shed light on issues we didn’t even know existed, and can raise questions we hadn’t realised needed asking”.
Terry Freedman
Employees are the most important resource for a company and as a result, how employees are treated and how much they value working for you will massively impact how the company performs.
Personal development, work/life balance, remuneration, diversity, health, and work environment are all issues responsible employers need to address to ensure a happy and motivated workforce.
As a SME, under pressure financially, you might think undertaking research would be a ‘nice to have’, a luxury which you can’t prioritise. Below are five reasons we believe you should take the plunge...
So how do you know what your employees think?
Conducting an employee survey is a key way of gathering insight into what is important to your employees.
Measure Employee Engagement: As we touched on in our ‘Good Mental Health at Work’ article, 23 May, the correlation between staff wellbeing/motivation and business performance is commonly known as ‘employee engagement’. The primary reason for issuing a survey is to measure the current engagement level of your employees. Finding out what your employees think and what they value is crucial information to support the company's future approach to advancement, recognition, pay & benefits, training, and work environment.
Give Employees a Voice: A crucial part of a good survey is to give your employees the opportunity to give you open feedback. This establishes two-way communication and gives your employees a direct line of communication to the management team. This voice, and the subsequent involvement in the companies planning process, make employees realise they have a stake in the company and that their views matter.
Increase Employee Engagement: Having assessed how engaged your employees are, you can then look to use this as a benchmark and put in place an action plan to increase engagement. The survey will highlight your strengths and weaknesses, giving you a solid foundation moving forward.
Focus Your Growth Strategy: Having an insight into how well your company performs in areas such as employee engagement, effective leadership and work environment, give you tangible objectives for positive change. As your company grows, minimising staff turnover and retaining great employees will be the foundation on which success can be built.
Evaluate Against Your Benchmark: The results of your first survey set the benchmark. Moving forward you can track your progress with a point of comparison, giving you tangible information to clearly identify if the actions you are taking are meeting your objectives, or if in fact you are spending time and money in the wrong places.
Whom should you survey?
Make an effort to survey all employees. It shows that you value everyone’s opinion, whether they are part of the management team or front-line employees. In doing this you will get a clearer picture of your organisations strengths and weaknesses from your employees perspective.
How to do it?
At Parsonage we have Sarah, our in-house Research Director, who has worked in research for over 10 years and holds the MRS (Market Research Society) Advanced Certificate.
Sarah works with employers to conduct research on their behalf. You may think you are the best person to know what’s best for your business, and you probably are, but you are also not only busy running your business, but extremely close to it. Using Parsonage as external independent researchers will give you the bigger picture.
Moreover, it’s probably cheaper than you think. Often an online staff survey can get the job done and a project like that would cost in the region of £400.
Over and above such surveys we can undertake research with your customers or potential customers. Whether your business and brand, your service, your competitors, or new product development/testing, we can help you establish if you are heading in the right direction.
If you’d like to know more about our research services please get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.