How to Improve Employee Engagement with Mini-Surveys
Soliciting employee input can help your company work better while motivating employees to do a better job. Employees will be reluctant to approach supervisors not knowing how they will be received, and the old anonymous suggestions box provides little focus and may only attract comments from those who are very happy or unhappy. Conducting mini-surveys on a regular basis that focus on what you want to know or what the employees' concerns might be, is a much better way to elicit employee feedback.
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Instructions
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Begin by making your employees comfortable with the process. Ask for input on something like how to improve customer satisfaction. This shows that you value input "from the trenches."
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Come up with a single question and provide multiple answers that the company would be able to implement. Allowing employees to form their own answers may get replies that are impractical or unfocused. Providing choices makes it more possible for employees to see their ideas implemented.
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Include an option for "Other." The easy format of a multiple choice question gets them to respond. That's the tip of engagement. If you want to keep them, you have to leave the door open for full out response. While some people will engage slowly, others just need that little invitation to really respond.
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Use paper surveys rather than online for greater trust.Yes, you can create anonymous online surveys, but people often don't trust that you aren't somehow tracking them. Also, unless your employees are always sitting at a computer, and the survey is right in front of them on the screen, they may never get around to clicking on the link to take the survey.
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Print the survey up on half or quarter sheets of paper. Leave piles of the survey, along with writing implements and a box to put them in, everywhere your employees might pause for a moment. On counters, in their work area, the break room, even in the restrooms.
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Conduct surveys regularly. Every month, or even every week, ask a new question. Print the new question on a different color of paper so people know it's new.
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Act on the results. Sometimes you will have to ask a follow-up question before you can take action, but even the follow-up question shows the employees you are listening. Employees disengage partly because they feel there is no point to anything they try. Show them they can make a difference, even a small one, and that will boost employee engagement more than just about anything else you can do.
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Tips & Warnings
Engage your employees in the survey process itself. At the bottom of the survey include, "What other questions should we ask?" They know what their problems are. They know what the customer problems are. Nothing gets people engaged like asking for help, and asking them to help you to help them is a win-win situation.
Don't ask about issues you have no intention of acting on or provide answer choices that are impossible.
Be willing to accept the good with the bad. Except in cases where the employee appears to present a danger to others, don't try to weed out who sent what response and never take retribution based on a reply you solicited.
