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The most successful organizational change programs are the ones that are supported by sound information and solid facts. Though ESS or employee satisfaction surveys have been around for a long time now, it was only recently that the “engagement” buzzword caught on, and how! Let’s take a look at the fundamental differences between engagement and satisfaction surveys and their process of administration. As you will find out, they are most definitely not the same things.

Follow up Machinery:

Brief the senior management based about the strong points and the areas of development of the organization by conducting a normative analysis of the survey results

Share the survey results with the management team and the employee via e-mail and employee meetings

Finalize on the improvement areas and create an itemized action plan based on it

Select the team responsible for implementing the action plan including team leaders and managers, providing specific training where required

Regularly track the progress of the action plan and share the information with the senior management

Pitfalls in execution:

Design and implementation pitfalls:

What do you want from the survey?

The first step of any survey is to objectively arrive at the purpose of the survey. Whether it is to prove a hypothesis, predict future behavior or assess a current scenario, it must be stated clearly and concisely beforehand.

During questionnaire design:

• Questions not aligned with the study objective in mind
• Including lengthy, biased, difficult or ambiguous questions
• Questionnaire not sufficiently reviewed before being circulated
• Pre-testing not performed, this may result in a lot of “don’t know/not sure” responses to potentially confusing or lengthy questions

During Sample selection:

• Unnecessarily increasing sample size to compensate for “less responses”; for example it is better to have 260 people responding out of 300 than 5500 out of 10000.
• Using non-probability sampling where actually probability sampling is required
• Employees not kept in the loop while selecting a sample, resulting in a feeling of resentment amongst those not included in the sample

During data Processing:

• Skipping step to save time can negatively impact the usefulness of the survey
• Counterintuitive results or impossible/inconsistent answers are not cross-checked
• Weak non-responder policy/execution can result in a flawed survey outcome

Other Pitfalls:

• Inefficient follow-up action – A loosely implemented action plan can spell complete wastage of resources as the survey will have little or no impact on the employee satisfaction, engagement or performance; the survey is thus reduced to obscure piece of information.
• Disinterested workers – The fate of a survey is majorly pre-decided by the level of interest employee’s display towards it, a survey of disinterested people cannot result in anything interesting. Therefore it is essential to take the employees into confidence by communication exercises before the commencement of the survey so as to explain the nature and scope of the survey.
• Confidentiality not ensured – Responses tend to be biased if confidentially is not expressly ensured by the survey administrators and the management, because all participants tend to select the ‘most appropriate answer’ instead of the ‘factual answer’. While communicating this it should be made clear that the purpose of the survey is not to judge the employees but to judge the factors affecting the organization.
• Unrealistic employee expectation of the survey – Employers as a rule should avoid asking question on the areas where they do not want and/or do not see any scope for change; this is not only purposeless but also tends to unnecessarily raise employee expectations eventually leading to resentment.

*THE payback is that for every 10 percent improvement in engagement, the company reaps an increase in the employee’s effort level by 6 percent, according to the Hay Group, a Philadelphia-based survey firm.