Employee surveys can be a great way to get more information about how your company is working right now and what you can do to make it work more effectively. However, many employers struggle with convincing employees to actually take the survey. These five tips may entice more of your employees to take an employee survey.
1. Design Your Survey With Anonymity in Mind
If your survey allows you to directly identify each person who responded, you’re unlikely to get completely honest answers for fear of retribution. Ideally, you should allow people to respond completely anonymously, as they’ll be more likely to give their honest opinions about how the company works and any problems they’ve experienced as part of the company.
2. Explain How Certain Demographic Data May Be Used
Demographic data, like age, job title, and years at the company, are all things that can identify an individual even if that individual never provided their name during the survey. It’s best to make sure that demographic data is only available in aggregate, not individually linked to responses, or to request demographic data that would include many individuals in each response.
3. Use a Third-Party Tool to Analyze Survey Responses
Third-party tools may have elements to them that specifically prioritize anonymity. For example, some third-party survey tools explicitly don’t allow you to see individual responses and can only show you aggregate responses. If you choose a third-party survey tool that prioritizes anonymity for respondents, they’re more likely to feel comfortable responding.
4. Provide a Benefit to Completing the Survey
If the only benefit to completing the survey is for the company, there are some people who may respond, but some people might not feel like there’s a good enough reason for them to respond. Instead, it’s a good idea to provide a benefit to the people who are completing the survey. You may opt to give each person who completes the survey a gift card for a small denomination, or instead to enter each person who responds into a drawing for a gift card for a larger denomination.
5. Actually Implement Requests From Your Survey
At the end of the survey, you want to make sure you’re taking respondents’ answers to heart. Not only can this boost company morale, as it shows that you actually care about the people who work at your company, but it can also make people more likely to participate in future surveys. Try to implement as many requests as are feasible, as these can make your company function better and can improve employee morale in general.
Conclusion
An employee survey may be just what you need to learn more about your company’s current situation, including any places where you can make the company work more effectively. However, before you start the employee survey, you need to make sure you’re doing everything you can to maximize responses. With these tips, you’ll be able to get as many responses as possible once you launch your survey.
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