Alongside the many benefits of employee engagement surveys, there are also negatives. Organisations need to change their approach to get the most out of their staff surveys.

The Negatives of Employee Engagement Surveys

For companies to get the maximum positive effects when using employee engagement surveys they need to tackle the negatives. All the biggest issues can be avoided prior to conducting the staff surveys.

1. Engagement Survey Response Rates

The market is currently saturated with surveys, created for workforce engagement and otherwise. Radio stations want feedback on their playlists, apps make requests to be rated and companies want to engage employees.

In order to have the most useful and effective staff questionnaire, organisations need to personalise their surveys and communications. This lets employees know that the survey is being taken seriously and that this isn’t a one-off measure. In turn, this increases the amount of respondents.

Find out How to Improve Engagement Survey Response Rates.

2. Poor Employee Survey Planning

It’s key to consider timing prior to employee engagement surveys. If the company is already going through change, it’s probably best to delay the staff survey until a time when the company is at an equilibrium.

Similarly, if employees are going through a busy period, the staff surveys should be postponed. Otherwise, the workforce will view the engagement survey as less important and an extra tax on their busy schedule which can skew results.

It’s also important to be aware of resources available for follow-up actions. If there’s not enough time or funds to make changes then an engagement survey will have the opposite effect.

Employees will feel that their time has been wasted and that their views are not being listened to. Worse than that, staff may feel that they are not valued.

To get the maximum effect from employee engagement surveys there need to be small immediate ‘quick-wins’, ongoing feedback to the staff and further follow-up actions. If there aren’t resources to do this then again the employee engagement survey may need to be delayed.

3. Asking the Wrong Employee Engagement Survey Questions

This is a significant issue with internally conducted employee engagement surveys. Employee engagement survey questions may be asked based on preconceived ideas of what employees need. Yet, the survey itself is created to ascertain what those needs are.

Furthermore, internally created surveys may have ambiguous wording and ask questions that are too broad. They’re also seen as having less anonymity, results may be taken personally or even underestimated.

By using a third party, employees can be assured about the level of anonymity and be more honest in their responses. Moreover, data can be collated quickly which will lead to fast results.

Lastly, a third party have experience in the writing and execution of a survey. great{with}talent, for example, can prioritise top talent engagement by giving their results more weight. Therefore, companies can focus on engaging the people they have spent the most resources on.

Through planning, communication and the use of professional employee engagement surveys, these negatives can be avoided. This will give greater benefits and get the most from whatever staff surveys a company uses.

Contact great{with}talent and find out more about their TalentEngage employee engagement surveys.

(Main image from Best Start HR)