Looking for the right way to change or improve your company culture and environment? Conducting a workplace survey is an effective, data-driven approach to achieve that goal.
A positive work environment is one of the most sought after factors for job seekers.
For context, 47% of active job seekers cite company culture as their driving reason for looking for work. (Bulletin).
Additionally, improving company culture has a direct impact on maintaining positive employee retention rates.
In this blog post, our employee engagement company discusses our 9 step process to conducting a workplace survey. These project stages will help you and your business create a better work experience for your team.
What is a Workplace Survey?
Before diving into the process of an employee survey, let’s quickly discuss a basic definition.
A workplace survey is a type of market research organizations utilize to gain feedback from employees to measure engagement, morale, satisfaction, and more.
An employee survey is most commonly conducted online with an email survey invitation link. It is our recommendation to partner with a third-party market research firm.
Here are a few reasons why it is beneficial to hire an employee survey company:
- Employees know their answers are kept confidential.
- Employees will answer honestly and not fear being penalized for their feedback.
- Ask unbiased, professionally written questions.
- Achieve higher response rates.
For a more detailed analysis, read Using a Third Party for Employee Surveys.
Benefits of Conducting a Workplace Survey
The most substantial benefits of conducting a workplace survey center around how organizations act on the feedback.
Employees want to love the work they do at the workplace. They also want to feel comfortable working with their colleagues. A comfortable work environment is directly associated with success.
The results of market research provide businesses with data-driven insights to improve their team culture.
It is far superior to basing organizational decisions on general assumptions of what you think your employees want and need.
No matter the responses, good or bad, results are good because all companies can grow off of their feedback. After all, that’s why surveys are created!
For more benefits of a workplace survey, watch the short video below.
How to Conduct a Workplace Survey
1. Kickoff Meeting
A kickoff meeting is where the team sets up their own schedule before the meeting to guide the discussion.
The most important thing is what you as the client wants to do with your company and how we envision helping you.
2. Workplan
This workplan includes key tasks, deliverables, and dates, which are the big picture aspects of a survey.
Understanding the big picture before going into the little intricacies of the entire job is important.
3. Writing the Workplace Survey
The analysis you create after fieldwork closes is reflective of the questions you ask your employees through this document.
This is the most important part of the employee survey process. It is the critical reason why you should use a third-party organization.
4. Access to Employee Database
To access the company's database, an excel file is almost always used.
In this database, there are many fields and categories used for all of the data.
These fields can be added to the survey file and save respondents time from asking additional questions you already have the answers to.
5. Programming the Workplace Survey
Once the final draft is completed, the piece is programmed as an online survey. The formatting will be compatible with all mobile devices as well as tablets, laptops, and computers.
As soon as the survey is in the correct formatting, it can be printed and handed out to staff with an option to return it.
The surveys can also be mailed directly to houses, whichever sees best fit for their survey to get the best responses.
6. Sending a Pre-Notice to the Employee Survey
There are three things that we think are important for sending a pre-email notice.
Number one is for when employees can expect an invite.
Number two is why a response is important.
And finally, number three is to confirm the credibility and third-party aspect of using a separate market research company.
These pre-notice emails look good for you, and they are helpful for the people receiving them, so it’s a win-win.
7. Fieldwork
Once you have gotten near your response goal for your employee survey, the fieldwork is now closed.
Although that means the fieldwork is closed on that specific date, the surveys can still be accessed afterward by the company.
8. Analysis & Reporting Workplace Survey Findings
Finally, the analysis and reporting. The company can now go into the data and start working on summarizing the key findings.
The employee survey report is where the company receives their feedback, beginning the process of reviewing and rebuilding their company based on the answers given in the survey.
Final Thoughts
This 9 step process is the key to getting your company back on track to success.
Creating these surveys inside your business is just the beginning of the improvement process.
You can do so much more to your business with an employee survey, all you have to do is seek help from a market research company like Drive Research.
Contact Our Employee Market Research Company
Drive Research is a national market research company, specializing in workplace surveys. Our services extend across several business sectors and audience types.
We offer many different approaches to collecting employee feedback such as online surveys, phone surveys, and paper surveys.
To partner with Drive Research for your next workplace survey, contact our team today.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
