I often get asked about annual employee surveys. An HR Manager will ask me for support on the best way to increase engagement and response rate and I will always give my top tips for getting your survey to a point where colleagues want to answer. These tips are:
- Make it as easy as possible for colleagues to complete
- Ensure the entire senior team through to the front line managers are bought in
- Base at least one of your questions on previous agreed actions
- Keep surveys simple and as short as possible
- Make the responses anonymous
- Give your feedback project an identity to engage
- Avoid meaningless questions
Then I ask the question - why are you only doing this once per year?
While my top tips are all perfectly valid I would ask how long the benefit of that survey can be felt. If you take into account internal moves, natural attrition, changing attitudes and seasonality your annual feedback could be out of date by the time you get the results.
So, can you break the annual survey cycle?
Yes. And your business will feel the benefit for it.
- Regular pulse checks keep employee involvement high on the agenda
- Continuous improvement based on feedback will increase engagement naturally
- Identify successes and celebrate as a team
- Identify challenges quickly and resolve
- Capture incidental feedback that would not be remembered during an annual cycle
Regular feedback from colleagues doesn’t need to be long winded or expensive. A pertinent 2-3 question quick survey, will give you enough insight to put clear actions in place and see whether previous actions have had an impact. A longer survey could still run annually or bi-annually for a more detailed understanding - the two things can compliment each other very well.
Above all, it is imperative that there is limited delay between asking for feedback and delivering the outcomes so that all colleagues can get involved in creating and agreeing any actions. The loop MUST be closed to ensure that engagement remains high.
If you are ready to engage with colleagues in a more pro-active way give us a call or take a look at our Employee Feedback page for more details.