Employee Surveys: Guide & Everything You Need to Know

Health, economic and political crises and the resulting desire for better pay and more work-life balance have changed our working world forever. Gone are the days when employees worked for the same company their entire lives. Instead, both small family businesses and large corporations are currently facing the challenge of recognizing their employees' needs in time and acting accordingly.

Honest feedback from your own employees is an important tool to positively influence their motivation, satisfaction and thus ultimately their performance. To obtain this, there is hardly an alternative to asking employees about various aspects of their daily work.

 

In this article, we show what a successful employee survey looks like and which factors must be considered.

Definition, Function & Content: What makes a successful employee survey?

An employee survey is understood to be a systematic survey of employees on behalf of the company, which collects various information about their attitudes, expectations or needs in a specific area of the work environment. A good employee survey should also consider possible suggestions for improvement.

In most cases, it is advisable for the works council chosen by employees to be responsible for the survey or at least to be involved in the evaluation: This not only ensures higher acceptance from respondents, but is also regulated by law!

The specific content of an employee survey depends primarily on the specific business objectives, but typically covers these areas of focus:

• Work organization and working conditions: Daily activities (working hours, division of labor, work processes), workload (stress, overtime, work volume), workplace design (noise, lighting, room temperature, workplace ergonomics), overall satisfaction with work in the company
• Salary and benefits: Earnings compared to other companies, appropriateness of pay, salary expectations, further training needs
• Communication and collaboration: Manager behavior, relationship with managers and colleagues, technical skills and competence in the team, desire for team-building activities, workplace atmosphere
• Assessment of one's own performance ability or willingness: Difficulties in performing the task, opportunities for development, importance of work, professional development potential, personal motivation

 

In practice, a distinction is made between a comprehensive employee survey (= general questions on relatively many topics) and a specific employee survey (= detailed questions on only one topic). Regardless of its type, a survey should be completed after 40 to 50 minutes and should not exceed approximately 60 questions, otherwise the willingness of respondents to complete the questionnaire decreases.

 

Characteristics of an employee survey: What really matters?

For an employee survey to be successful, according to Walter Bungard, one of the leading German researchers in the field of business, work and organizational psychology, it must meet the following characteristics, among others:

• The survey should be standardized, written and goal-oriented: The formulation of the questionnaire is crucial for the validity of the data collected. If you want to find out whether employees are satisfied, a mere question about satisfaction is not sufficient. Instead, the topic should be divided into various aspects (e.g., through various questions about stress, working hours or specific work processes in the company).
• All employees must have an equal opportunity to participate in the survey: However, there should be no compulsion, as only voluntary participation provides reliable results. Guaranteed anonymity is the most important prerequisite for employees to provide honest rather than socially desirable answers.
• The results must be determined and evaluated within two to four weeks: The data analysis should ideally identify problem areas where concrete improvement steps can then be taken.
• Managers or team leaders should discuss the results and suggested solutions to possible problems with employees in an open round: Actual implementation of the suggestions must take place promptly so that employees take a further survey seriously. The effectiveness of change measures must be verified through another survey conducted at a later date.

 

Reading tip: Bungard, Walter et al. (2007). Employee surveys – what next...? MAB and follow-up processes successfully designed. Heidelberg: Springer Medicine.
➔ especially chapter 2: Planning and conducting employee surveys

 

Employee surveys should take place at regular intervals (e.g., once per quarter), with older results always being compared to newer ones. A successful employee survey is therefore not a one-time special action, but should be regarded as a continuous element of business processes!

Preparation, Planning & Implementation: What should be considered in an employee survey?

For a company employee survey to lead to useful insights, the entire project must be planned in detail in advance. Researchers from the Hamburg Research Group (F.G.H.), who have dealt intensively with the topic of work organization in the context of their project, propose the following action plan for the conduct of an employee survey:

 

1. Phase: Organizational Planning

• Goal discussion: Survey objectives are determined with all stakeholders (managers, department heads, works council). A team responsible for organizing the survey must be formed from representatives of different business units.
• Decision: The project team creates a rough concept (content, scope, target group, effort, procedure) and discusses this with the management.
• Detailed concept: Based on consultation with management, a detailed concept for the overall project is developed (questionnaire, evaluation, implementation of results).

 

2. Phase: Practical Implementation

• Marketing: In collaboration with the marketing department, a marketing concept is created to motivate as many employees as possible to participate. This includes information sheets on the purpose of the survey, articles in the intranet, circulars, etc.
• Survey: The questionnaire is distributed strategically and the survey is conducted anonymously.
• Results presentation: The survey is evaluated according to previously established criteria and then discussed with stakeholders from all levels (managers, team leaders and employees) either jointly or in a staggered manner.

 

3. Phase: Implementation of Findings

• Action plans: Based on the results, concrete measures are defined at the entire company level.
• Realization: Change processes are carried out in coordination with responsible departments.
• Success control: Intermediate results are recorded at the management level. The effectiveness of change measures must be verified through another employee survey conducted at a later date.

 

Reading tip: Domisch, Michel E./Désirée H. Ladwig (Eds.) (2006). Handbook of Employee Surveys. 2nd Edition. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer.
➔ The presented procedure is based in content on the action plan by Domisch/Ladwig (see Fig. 3a, p. 12 - 14), but was strongly summarized by us and supplemented in some places.

 

Conclusion: Employee Survey – an underestimated tool for internal communication

Especially in recent years, it has become clear that companies can only be successful if they do not ignore the needs of their employees. An employee survey is the first step and an important tool to identify possible problems and promote direct exchange within the team.

Ultimately, an employee survey is a good feedback tool because it makes blind spots visible, which can develop especially in large organizations among managers. The success of an employee survey largely depends on how company management and team leaders handle the results. In this sense, such a survey should not only identify problems but also trigger the necessary changes.