5 questions to interpret your employee engagement survey results

I read on MarketingWeek.com about the importance of getting your customer data right to achieve better customer loyalty, a no brainer, perhaps? It makes sense: get correct and comprehensive data (with their permission, of course) and the sky’s the limit! If companies know more about their customers, they can encourage them to stay as a customer based on building a relationship and understanding their needs and experiences.

This led me to wonder what can we do with data to encourage better employee engagement?

The employee engagement survey is still much ingrained in employee engagement strategy, however, many companies stumble when it comes to interpreting the results.

MarketingWeek explains: “Experian’s annually published Global Data Quality Research Discussion Paper…the number of organisations who suspect their data might be inaccurate in some way has increased from 86% to 92% since  2014.”

Let’s think for a second about your survey questions, what exactly do you ask in your survey…yes, you know your employees names, maybe their birth date, the role they do, are they happy on a scale of 1-10, etc…but what about more than that?­

As eHarmony advised MarketingWeek about their new user profile data, the questions you ask on surveys are absolutely key:

“For us, data is not just a tool, it is at the centre of everything that the product, marketing, matching, trust and safety teams do,” he says.

It’s all very well having data, but if the questions aren’t right, you simply won’t get the answers you need to take decent action.

So, when it comes to employee engagement surveys, what should you be asking, and how? Your employees need to feel their voice means something, even better if they can see their voice has helped make a difference.

Using Champions/people managers, and focus groups for each team or department for your survey is a great way to get feedback if it’s not feasible to distribute a survey to all employees. This encourages employees to get together and feel their feedback is valued, it doesn’t have to be serious!

When the survey is complete, it’s important not to just do a scan through for the numbers, write a limp and basic report and then shelve the results.

Make comparisons across departments/levels of role to determine different benchmarks and milestones. It’s always a good idea to consider context too, what has happened within the business that year, what will happen in the near future? Are there any other contributing factors?

5 key questions to think about when compiling your employee engagement survey results are:

1)   Where are the strengths of the company/department?

2)   Where have you improved most?

3)   Where are your opportunities for improvement?

4)   Where have you seen decreases compared to last year’s results?

5)   What surprises you about these results?

When you have your completed results, don’t forget to broadcast them, and again, encourage feedback on any agreed action points. This is where your Champions and managers can really come into play too, will they need assistance and support in talking to their teams about the results?

Whatever you decide, make sure everyone is on the same page, and communication is clear and honest, and that your survey data isn’t holding your company back!

Just to show you what employee engagement surveys can do when asking the right questions in the right way, and showing the importance employees and their voice play in the company when everyone is on the same page, our Case Study data from our work with Everest showed:

Engagement survey response rates increased from 50% to 94%, and Employees started taking action immediately to reduce costs within the business – saving millions

84% of employees volunteered to reduce their salaries, as the economic crisis worsened (representing over £1 million of savings)

So, what’s holding your survey back?

Fancy a chat about how People Lab can help with your surveys? Email us at: info@peoplelab.co.uk or call us on 07595465515.