Employee Surveys Result in Better Communication

Satisfaction, Engagement, Productivity Improve With Feedback

Employee surveys can improve organizational results when public relations professionals probe to link employee engagement with business strategy and objectives, pay attention to survey design and use online and software survey tools to gather responses.

According to International Association of Business Communicators April 2009 CW Bulletin, employee surveys start with the organization’s business strategy and its communications management tools designed to achieve results such as internal communication.

Measure Internal Communication Link to Business Strategy

A full range of questioning techniques works best, as do action-oriented questions. Types of questions include: agree/disagree, scales, open-ended, responding to statements and prioritizing responses.

Survey design should include a variety of these types of questions and not, for example, just a list of agree/disagree statements. Responses to these types of surveys provide little information about the scale of agreement or disagreement and do not help communicators prioritize burning employee satisfaction issues.

For example, results from a survey question such as “communications is good” or “my manager is a good communicator” fail to uncover the issues that affect an employee’s ability to work effectively.

Instead, surveys should be an opportunity to probe deeply into employee satisfaction and attitudes about the credibility of information, the effectiveness of those who communicate, the communications tools used and timeliness of the information. The results should also improve internal communications management.

Link Employee Satisfaction, Engagement With Productivity

Each question on an employee survey should provide insight into the nature of an employee’s engagement with the organization. Most importantly, ensure that the link between communications and engagement is an outcome of the employee survey.

Before considering the questions on the survey, identify the performance measures that are tied to communications. For example, explore the positive relationship between the work environment and level of employee engagement. Determine how financial results in the organization can be affected by improved communications.

These financial results include levels of customer service, quality, safety, retention and absenteeism. Employee surveys can measure to following levels of employee satisfaction: trust, commitment, understanding of goals and roles, job satisfaction and the overall work environment.

Measures that could be tracked related to employee productivity include attrition, workplace accidents, sick days taken, and the number or amount of products and services delivered.

Construct the survey by asking questions about each communications vehicle such as newsletters, intranet, email, town halls, and face-to-face communications with managers and senior management.

Also, ask questions about the overall work environment, the understanding of business issues and main challenges that employees believe the organization faces.

Use Survey Software, Web Survey Or Online Survey For Best Response Rates

Online or web surveys are popular and have high response rates because of each is easy to use. The most basic surveys can be designed, sent and analyzed using free online tools like Survey Monkey however, consider paying for an upgraded version to allow for a greater number of surveys and a higher degree of analysis.

Importantly, establish a set of baseline questions that you can track over time. For example, if a goal is to improve the work environment and employee satisfaction by measuring levels of trust between employees and managers, track responses and perform checkup surveys every year.

Public relations professionals will be able to use this information, including trends observed, to play a leadership role by influencing key decisions. Communications will also become an important feature in organizational strategy.

The results from employee surveys can play a meaningful role in an organization’s success. Public relations professionals should make sure that business objectives are connected to the information that such surveys seek to discover, watch for a range of question types and design a survey that can be administered and analyzed online.