Surveys are invaluable for gauging employee satisfaction and engagement. However, to get the most out of one, you must select a survey tool that allows you to ask the right questions that will yield the most actionable data.
There are numerous options for conducting employee surveys, from collaborative spreadsheets to anonymous suggestion boxes to formal survey software. Whichever method you choose, it should be easy to use and help employees feel safe and comfortable providing honest feedback.
According to a panel of Forbes Human Resources Council members, these are 14 important factors to consider in your search for the ideal employee survey tool.
Forbes Human Resources Council members share key factors to consider when searching for an employee survey tool.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.1. Ease Of Completion
Implementing a tool to collect data that employees can simply access from a phone or device, as opposed to logging on to a PC and typing out essay-formatted feedback, is ideal. Short, simple, real-time Q&A is the way. Also, it is far more practical to act upon surveys conducted more frequently than once a year than it is to be overloaded with a year’s worth of feedback. - Christina Hobbs, American Queen Steamboat Company
2. Guaranteed Confidentiality
An absolute guarantee of complete confidentiality is the only way to have a shot at soliciting truly honest feedback from your people. Without that sense of comfort, you’re going to waste your time sifting through a lot of hedging and pandering. - Bryan Passman, Hunter + Esquire
3. The Right Kind Of Assessment
Consider what information you are trying to collect. If you are looking for DEI data on how employees see the culture or the leadership, general engagement surveys will not get you the answers you are seeking. If DEI data is what you seek, look for a culture assessment, not an employee engagement assessment. - Kelly Lockwood Primus, Leading NOW
4. Simplicity
Employee surveys are powerful tools, especially in a remote work environment. However, there are a few important qualities a survey should have to ensure it captures quality results. It should be simple for users to read, understand and respond to, with a clean user interface and concise questions, and it should be able to generate meaningful insights (metrics) for those analyzing the results. - Naveen Bhateja, Medidata Solutions
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5. Anonymity
The tool must be anonymous and provide easy-to-read reports. It is also critical for the tool to provide data in a way that will highlight whether certain departments, locations or demographics are having different experiences without jeopardizing the data’s confidentiality. - Jacqlyn Nedvin, Autism Speaks Inc.
6. Your Commitment To Act On Feedback
The tool is only as useful as what you do with the information. Before conducting an employee survey, commit to taking action on the feedback. There is nothing more disengaging than asking for employee feedback and not doing anything with it. Go into it with an attitude of “exposing reality” and a mindset to take action. Then, use a tool that will allow for simple, frequent, easy-to-conduct surveys. - Ben DeSpain, Velocity, a Managed Services Company
7. An Intentional Process And Intent
More important than the tool is the process and intent of the employee engagement survey. The focus should be on identifying the key drivers in your organization that positively impact engagement as well as those that negatively impact it. These could be captured through some initial, informal conversations prior to launching the survey so that you have a hypothesis to work with. - Srikant Chellappa, Engagedly | Mentoring Complete
8. A Great User Experience
To capture an accurate snapshot of job satisfaction and engagement levels, employee engagement survey tools must provide a great user experience that allows employees to complete them quickly and easily. If a survey is too long or difficult to navigate, employees won’t bother to complete it, and the functionality of the survey tool becomes irrelevant. - John Feldmann, Insperity
9. Options For Measurable Feedback
Continuous listening is integral to understanding how our teams are feeling, what is working well and where the gaps lie. Any platform will need to be able to capture insights through various types of pulse, check-in and onboarding survey options. We don’t know what we can’t measure, so it’s important to have a tool that has the flexibility to drill down on the data and reporting. - Maria Miletic, Blue Prism Software
10. Flexibility
Make sure the tool has the flexibility to pulse the questions that matter most to your organization and allows you to then look at the responses in a way that tells the real story with the data. Employees have taken the time to give their input; the tool cannot get in the way of acting on it. - Keri Higgins Bigelow, LivingHR, Inc.
11. Prewritten Responses And Open Text Fields
Anonymity can be helpful when gauging employee satisfaction. This is especially pertinent if you manage a small team or small company where responses can be easily tied to individuals. If you are a particularly small group, consider allowing employees to select prewritten responses to questions to ensure anonymity, providing an open text field for those who wish to offer more insight. - Laura Spawn, Virtual Vocations, Inc.
12. A Convenient Interface And Easy Configurability
The utility of a survey tool lies in its ease of use. Engagement surveys are shifting to daily pulse surveys, but the tool could also be used in seeking opinions on other topics. Hence, a convenient interface and easy reconfigurability become important. If cost is a factor, you could consider the Uber model of paying as you use the tool, rather than buying one. - Kumar Abhishek, S&P Global
13. Robust Reporting Capabilities
If companies expect to be able to take action based on the feedback from an employee survey, then the tool should have robust reporting capabilities. Clear, illustrative data will lead managers to make meaningful changes based on the outputs of the survey. Over time, trends will develop, so the objective nature of the robust reporting will continue to complement or challenge subjective observations. - Jessica Delorenzo, Kimball Electronics Inc
14. Customizable Questions
If you’re using a new tool, then it should provide the ability to input the prior year’s data for year-over-year comparison. While some questions should be asked each year, the survey tool should allow for customizable questions to address the specific needs of the organization. If possible, select a survey tool that provides an analysis of areas of strength and weakness, and then take action on those results. - Karla Bylund, Soaring Bird Solutions LLC
