Building a stronger company that is efficient and well-equipped to meet the needs of its current and potential customers begins with examining the morale and behavior patterns of its employees. In particular, department leaders are key for determining if employees are truly interested and invested in helping their organization move forward and reach its full potential.
One method that is useful for managers who want to take a pulse of their staff's mindset is to distribute an employee survey to gather anonymous feedback. If you are thinking about applying this type of tool, 10 Forbes Human Resources Council members share some essential items to consider before selecting such a platform.
Members pictured from left to right.
Photos courtesy of individual members.1. Inclusiveness
Aside from reliability, the inclusive nature of the tool is essential when selecting an engagement survey tool. Questions or statements should be presented in a way that considers and calls in, not out, all team members, regardless of their background, position, status or tenure. - Domonique Revere, Adjaye Associates
2. User-Friendliness
Employee surveys are as much for the employee as they are for the company. When choosing a survey tool, you want to make sure that you review the product from the employee's perspective. You want to make sure it's easy to use, branded and provides data that gives your team the ability to take the results and build actions. - Jessica Wallen, Wurl, LLC
3. Goal-Oriented Action Plan Design
An employee engagement survey tool needs to have the ability to help leaders design, administer, analyze and enable an action plan for the team. Action planning is the cornerstone of moving the organization forward to improve engagement so that feature especially needs to be highly intuitive for all levels of the technical experience. Lastly, it is especially helpful to select a vendor that has data science and research teams in-house. - Kevin Moore, DocuSign
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4. Inclusion Of Benchmark Data Analytics
An employee engagement survey tool that includes benchmarking data helps you focus on areas of improvement better. It might be alarming to hear that only 67% of your employees say they’re inspired to meet goals, but you may feel differently once you learn the national average is 54% and your results are in the 99th percentile. This context helps you set actionable, smart goals for improvement. - Antoine Andrews, Momentive, the maker of SurveyMonkey
5. Modifiable Survey Paths
Employees don’t want to fill out cumbersome surveys, so employers should ensure forms employ conditional logic. Survey paths should be modified based on an employee’s response to the question. This ensures that the survey questions are tailored, collect useful information and are accurately adjusted to reflect the employee's relationship with the company (e.g., a seasoned employee versus a new hire). - Dirk Doebler, Parento
6. Tech Integrations
The user experience is significant. The ease of accessing and completing the survey will factor into the number of employee responses you receive. Does the survey tool integrate with chat tools such as Slack or Skype for business? Is it mobile and tablet ready? Is the survey setup easy from an administration perspective? - Teresa Martins, Madison Logic
7. Employee-Centered Question Customization
Many employee survey tools measure what our organization wants to know, not what the employee wants to tell us. An engagement survey tool should allow the customization of questions that identify what the employee is experiencing, as well as how that relates to the overall success of the organization. Each question should be actionable. Tools that don't get to this are ineffective. - Tracy Maylett, DecisionWise
8. Flexibility
Having the flexibility and option to add standard or benchmark survey questions and categories is key. The tool should also be designed with the ability to update, edit and add questions or new categories that meet the needs of your specific company culture. - Melissa Anzman, bettHR
9. Data Presentation And Analysis Ease
Sound question methodology, benchmarking data and anonymity of response are table stakes. What sets engagement survey tools apart is how they present data and the ease of analyzing it. Many times, you will want to drill deeper into demographics, teams or locations to better understand the story the data presents. Your ability to uncover new insights will determine the impact your survey can have. - Jennifer Marszalek, Revolution Global
10. Anonymity And Data Protection
Choose a tool that meets the specific needs and goals of your organization. The survey architecture should be customizable without compromising on validity and reliability and should ensure the anonymity of the respondents. It must be easy to use to foster a greater adoption or response rate from the participants and provide on time and clear actionable insights to the administrator while ensuring data protection. - Rohit Manucha, SIH AGH
