How to Create Employee Surveys
An employee opinion survey can identify workforce issues employees are sometimes reluctant to discuss. Employees may be willing to respond to questions if their employer can ensure anonymity and confidentiality. Developing a workplace survey generally falls within the purview of the human resources (HR) department's employee relations specialist. Employee relations specialists are responsible for addressing employee concerns and employment issues that affect morale, job satisfaction and employee engagement.
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Instructions
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Gather human resources files concerning all employee relations matters. This includes internal and external complaints, grievances, data pertaining to turnover, performance appraisals and disciplinary reports. Review the information, looking for departmental issues, inter-departmental issues or organization-wide issues.
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Schedule a meeting with HR staff members to discuss any concerns employees voice to other HR areas, such as questions about benefits, safety records, training and professional development. In companies with designated HR departments, employees are encouraged to report incidents and complaints to the employee relations specialist. For a variety of reasons, however, some employees may be more comfortable mentioning their concerns to another HR staff member.
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Record any patterns detected during your file review and categorize the employee issues of which other HR personnel are aware. List all the issues using a flip chart so everyone can participate in categorizing employee concerns. Your categories should include benefits, recruitment, safety, compensation and benefits. In other words, every section of human resources should be a separate category. Assign issues to the appropriate HR category, integrating the results of your file audit with information obtained from other HR staff. Double-check the categories and issues to prepare a comprehensive list of issues to present to company leadership.
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Discuss the HR department's preliminary findings with your company's chief operating officer. Explain how employee opinion surveys help management improve working conditions and increase job satisfaction. Explain how HR intends to analyze the results and construct action plans based on employee responses. Creating action plans based on employee survey responses can improve morale and productivity. The bottom line is important to company executives, therefore, justify the return on investment in developing an employee opinion survey.
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Reconvene your HR department staff and decide what type of employee opinion survey to administer. A computer-based survey is best for assuring employees that all responses are anonymous and kept confidential. Using specially networked computers, employees won't worry their answers can be tied to their log-in information. Determine how many questions to ask. Don't make the survey too long or employees will quit answering the questions. Design questions that require multiple choice or scaled answers. Include a few open-ended questions and space for employees to add comments.
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Schedule days and times to administer the survey. Remember to make the survey available around the clock if your company is a 24-hour operation. The last thing you want to do is exclude employees who don't work during normal business hours. Consider offering an incentive for completing the survey, but don't offer incentives that could be misconstrued as payment or bribes.
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References
- "Workforce Management": Employee Engagement: Define It, Measure It and Put It to Work in Your Organization
- Management-Issues: Employee Engagement: What Exactly Is It?
- International Personnel Assessment Council: Employee Engagement: From Survey to Action
- Personnel Today: Employee Engagement: Building an Employee Satisfaction Survey
- Hospitality Net: Ten Traps to Avoid With Employee Opinion Surveys
