UK 
United States
Completing an employee survey is part and parcel of working life; they may be met with a yawn, a sigh or even a twinkle in the eye - depending upon how much you relish the process. HR Grapevine asked experts whether they continue to be in vogue and how to use them for best advantage.
Why use them?
With so many digital tools available to capture how employees are thinking and feeling, it’s somewhat of a surprise that the employee survey has withstood the test of time. As reliable a roll-out as Christmas festivities and a birthday cake as the Gregorian calendar signals the notching up of another year – the survey is a mainstay of British working culture.
Kadisha Lewis-Roberts, Chief People Officer, Pure Data Centres Group says the beauty of them lies in their quick ability to pinpoint strengths and identify where the gaps are.
“They encourage the broader organisation to focus on psychological safety. They can be correlated with business performance (all the stats in the world will tell you that there is a direct link between high engagement and high turnover/revenue), they can be great development tools and they can also be fun and help shape your culture. The numbers and the free text can be so insightful. If you don’t use them, how do you know how you are doing (and avoid confirmation bias)?”
Sarah Jordan, co-founder and Managing Director at Engage Group, the engagement and leadership experts says that it’s a game of two halves. She is honest when she explains that sadly the old adage of them being used as a tick box exercise continues to ring true.
What’s better, she says is the use of surveys to get insights which can improve business performance. These she explains, ‘can be real game changers.’ “They look at what is driving engagement for different segments of the population and take actions to improve the employee experience to deliver true ROI (improved productivity, better talent retention, an improved customer experience, top or bottom-line growth).”
There is always a usefulness in measuring the ‘mood music’ says Laura Evans, CEO, Glass Ceilings a change management business. “They provide baseline data against which to measure other metrics and design workable initiatives to drive meaningful culture change. They are also a good way of understanding what’s going well and celebrating this.”
