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Alexandre Diard Have you ever had a job you didn’t enjoy because of the work environment? Why didn’t you enjoy being there? What could they have done differently? Those are just some of the questions that could’ve saved your employee experience in employee experience surveys.
Creating a space where employees can feel comfortable doing their work is vital. Having a workspace that people want to return to will help overall with the work they put in and the attitude they bring to their work.
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Survey Your Staff
Surveying employees are helpful both for existing and potential employees. When recruiting new employees, you want them to know that their opinion matters to the business.
Having a good work environment includes surveying your employees in employee experience surveys. Having the employees feel validated for their opinions will make them want to come to work and tell others about their good experiences working for the company.
Surveying your staff has multiple benefits that have been proven. Employee surveys lead to fewer absences, increased employee performance, increased employee satisfaction, and improved organizational culture, to mention just a few.
Not everyone will want to take the employee experience surveys that are provided for them, and survey participation may differ among companies. This could be because some employees experienced that no one took the result of a survey seriously. So showing your employees that you act on survey results can motivate employees and change their attitude about surveys.
Overall, surveying the employees will give them the feeling of empowerment and create an environment that will benefit the company.
Best Time to Provide Staff with Employee Experience Surveys
It is best to give surveys at times that you find suitable. It all depends on the type of company that is using the surveys. Most companies send surveys out annually or every six months. It is best to send out surveys at least once a year. Make sure it is easy to receive the results and more accessible for the employees, which could include using online surveys instead of paper surveys.
There are different times when companies find it best to use surveys for their employees.
Survey every other year
Surveying employees is essential for a successful business; however, companies that conduct an employee survey every other year are smaller. These companies don’t have many people working with them, making the work more personal and their survey process differentiated from more prominent companies. Having the employees come to the management and talk to them about their experiences may be easier.
Annually/Pulse surveys
Bigger companies typically perform annual/pulse employee experience surveys.
Surveying employees once or twice a year works fine for many companies. This gives the employees a sense of importance to the company. These surveys are typically conducted as an online survey through survey software. Distributing employee experience surveys online makes it easier for bigger companies to gather and analyze the survey data.
Continuous Feedback
Continuous feedback would be more used for new hires. While starting their work, if they have any worries, questions, or concerns, having that constant employee feedback will help the new employee feel more adjusted and help them improve faster. Having people give more feedback about their experience when joining the company will help anyone who enters it. Continuous feedback can be done personally through meetings between supervisors and employees, or through a feedback survey.
Create an Employee Experience Surveys for Best Results
There are many different questions to ask in workplace surveys. Some topics to consider would be personal growth, communication, access to resources, employee engagement, compensation and benefits, the effectiveness of the manager, team dynamic, the company itself, and the specific department.
Keep the language clear
You aren’t trying to trick your employees when asking survey questions. Make the question short and be clear on what you are asking.
For example:
How strong do you feel about the following statement? “I feel like the manager awards me when I do good work”
1 – Strongly Disagree
2 – Somewhat Disagree
3 – Neither Agree Nor Disagree
4 – Somewhat Agree
5 – Strongly Agree
Make your employees feel comfortable
Try not to use corporate language in the employee experience survey. This will make the survey question easier to read and less formal, making the respondent feel more comfortable.
For example:
How strong do you feel about the following statement? “I enjoy the company’s work culture”
1 – Strongly Disagree
2 – Somewhat Disagree
3 – Neither Agree Nor Disagree
4 – Somewhat Agree
5 – Strongly Agree
Anonymous
You do not want the employees to feel like they will get judged or be treated differently when they are voicing their opinions. If you want their true employee opinion, it is best to keep employee experience surveys anonymous. It is also important to explain to the employees that they have the right to speak up if they need to talk to human resources or the HR manager about something.
Employee individual-based questions
Every employee has their own life outside of the workplace. This can sometimes get in the way of their job, and it is vital to find out what they like outside of work. The goal is to ensure that the employees are happier coming to work and not dreading coming to work and to show that the company cares about a work-life-balance.
For example:
How strong do you feel about the following statement? “I feel like my work and life outside of work are balanced”
1 – Strongly Disagree
2 – Somewhat Disagree
3 – Neither Agree Nor Disagree
4 – Somewhat Agree
5 – Strongly Agree
Make it relevant
Not everyone in the company will have the same job title or the same role in the company. Try to keep some of the questions specific to that specific employee.
There are different ways to set this up; either you can have separate employee experience surveys for each department, you can divide the survey responses into separate boxes depending on which department they belong to, or you can have screening questions. Some departments may be treated differently, and it is best to see which departments you should focus on trying to make better.
For example:
Click the correct department that you are in:
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Finance Department
-
HR Department
-
Marketing Department
-
IT Department
-
Operations Department
How strong do you feel about the following statement? “I feel like I add value to my department”
1 – Strongly Disagree
2 – Somewhat Disagree
3 – Neither Agree Nor Disagree
4 – Somewhat Agree
5 – Strongly Agree
How to Produce Effective Employee Experience Surveys
Employee experience surveys can be long, short, more descriptive, or less descriptive; it all depends on what will create a better work environment for your company.
Figure out what you are surveying about
Figuring out what is the main target for the survey is crucial as the first step. Focus on what matters most for your company and this topic will serve as the core of your survey design. For example, if you want to find out about employee satisfaction, create an employee satisfaction survey. If you want to find out about employee engagement, create an employee engagement survey. The survey design needs to be centered around the topic that you want to do employee research about. Depending on the topic, the length of the employee experience survey differs. There could be shorter surveys used throughout the year, and you can make a more in-depth survey every two years.
Setting up the employee experience surveys
Make sure you use an appropriate survey template to make the visual of the survey look appealing. If the survey looks pleasant and more interactive, you will see an increase in response rate. Making the employee experience surveys more visually appealing can include different fonts, highlighted, bolded, or more significant words. Play around with the different survey tools and choose the ones that will keep your employees’ attention more on the survey. Conduct survey research and consider if open-ended or close-ended questions would be the most appropriate for your employee experience surveys. Make the questions more personal to their work so that people enjoy answering and sharing. Making this question should be at the beginning of the survey, so it grabs the employees’ attention.
Be in touch/promote the survey with your employees
Creating an email, telling the employees in person, or sending a message is needed if you want your employees to take the survey. Not everyone will pay attention, so it is best to ensure they know a couple of days in advance, the day before and the day of the survey, the employees know about the survey. Make sure that the survey is easily accessible for employees as well, which is simplest done through a survey online.
Communicate the results of the survey
Communicating employee survey results is the most important step in the survey process to make employees feel more important about why they answered the survey. First, thank the employees for providing their essential information. This should come from the HR department, the manager, or both. Then talk about the information found and summarize the survey results to the employees.
Take Action with the Survey Results
It is best to make an action plan with your employees, so you know what is in their best interest. When the action planning has been figured out, start implementing everything you found. As time moves on, keep your employees updated with the changes.
Plan for following employee experience surveys
It is always best to know what you will do next for the employee experience surveys. Figure out what worked for the survey and what didn’t work for the survey, and implement it for the following staff surveys.
Employee Experience Surveys’ Impact on the Company
Considering these steps will create a healthy work environment that people will want to be a part of. All employees want to feel important in their work, especially if they love what they do, and it is the HR department’s responsibility to make their employees feel seen and heard.
Having employee experience surveys that take the employees’ opinions into account and the company taking action and communicating those actions will create a company culture and work environment that people will want to be a part of.
Employees are the most crucial part of a business, and making them happy will positively affect their lives and have a direct reflection on their job performance. Through employee experience surveys, your company can expect more happy employees, which will lead to many positive things in the workplace, including more engaged employees, increased employee morale, improved employee retention, and expanded staff satisfaction.
