Performance | How to make engagement surveys more engaging

“Employees will feel frustrated if any process their HR department offers them is not smart, fully modern and always available,” explained Jim Bell, Chief Marketing Officer at employee engagement provider, Glint. “That’s particularly true of the employee survey,” he said.

Running an employee engagement survey is sought to assess how happy employees are at work, as well as their dedication to a company’s mission and overall success but it needs to be delivered in a way that will allow HR to receive honest feedback that can drive change. But HR doesn’t always get it right and this can result in plummeting employee engagement. This decline in engagement can be put down to two things, according to Bell who explained why engagement surveys can be a frustrating and unsatisfactory process for all parties involved.

He explained: “First, employees are asked to answer dozens of questions, with no facility for capturing their specific comments, which prevents them from truly sharing their opinions. Second, when survey results take weeks to process or are not easily understood by leaders and managers, and nothing then happens.” If these areas aren’t executed correctly then HR could have a problem on its hands – and HR may struggle to interpret the data in a way that will benefit employee engagement. So, what is the solution?

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Bell explained that when sophisticated design is combined with AI, “engagement survey results can be highly personalised for each manager, including a synthesis of hundreds or thousands of employee comments”. He explained: “Those results can also provide statistically proven and clear next steps. In fact, with an integrated people success platform, those next steps can become ‘people goals’ which can be shared and tracked alongside business goals and personal development goals, making them much more likely to be delivered.”