To Survey or Not To Survey...

#hr #shrm #surveys

Editor's Comments: This is an excellent post from our fellow HR colleague Kirby Cole -  @kirbycole.  It's a first hand description of a survey experience within his organization. His heart felt insights serve as an excellent reminder of how to more effectively use the tools that we do, as we continually try to work for the common good of our companies. Thanks Kirby!

The Mr. Kirby :-)

There are a lot of smart research companies that can ask lots of smart questions to figure out if your employees are happy, engaged, brand advocates, etc.  A quick example from Gallup, an industry leader in research, suggests some interestingly egg head-means to assess levels of employee engagement.

Gallup's engagement ratio is a macro-level indicator of an organization's health that allows executives to track the proportion of engaged to actively disengaged employees.

•               In world-class organizations, the ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees is 9.57:1.

•               In average organizations, the ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees is 1.83:1.

I can't tell you where our team falls on the ratio of engaged to actively disengaged, and to be honest I don't think it matters.  What does matter, is that if you take the time to ask some questions, you also take the time to listen, acknowledge, and where possible, act.  

Our company recently took part in an Employee Satisfaction survey given and analyzed by one of the big 4 consulting firms. It was great. 75% of our employees spent about 30 minutes on the survey. Of course we pestered them on an almost daily basis for two weeks to get this done, but it happened.  

As promised, the Big 4 firm provided us with 100 pages of graphs, charts, models, ratios, and predictions. You know what they didn't provide? ANY REAL VALUE.  

Seriously, ZERO value. The value we gleaned from this process was identified by our HR team taking the time to look at the types of questions asked, and look for common themes in the actual answers; not in the aggregate score multiplied by the sum of blah blah blah.  Could you imagine if we had gone back to our employees and presented graphs about their engagement level?  They were the ones who completed the survey, so of course they know if they are engaged or not.  

The point, from an HR best practice perspective, is that if you are going to survey your employees, listen to what they are saying, not what just what the numbers say. The Big 4's numbers told us our employees were unhappy and dis-engaged.  

What we HEARD from LISTENING was our employees were not upset with the usual suspects — too many hours, pay, promotion, etc. but with the actual review process, or lack there of. It was really important to our team to have regular reviews, based on actual conversations and dialogue and not just SuccessFactors yearly ratings.  

We ACKNOWLEDGED that we HEARD them in our monthly meetings, in our weekly communications, we formed an Employee Engagement Team to help re-build the review process, and we marketed the new process the entire company as an Employee lead initiative to give the employee's the review process they were hungry for.  

Finally, we ACTED. We got senior leadership to buy in to the new program, including commitment to the personal reviews that were necessary to make this work. We launched the program and even though it was time intensive, our employees were thrilled to see their feedback had lead to change. The funny thing, it might not change the actual outcome of the review process in terms of promotion or pay adjustments, but it changed the perspective of the process and the willingness of the company to listen.

Surveys are awesome. In my opinion you can do them with a suggestion box, with a napkin, with a notebook, with survey monkey, or with a high-powered consulting firm. The survey is only part, and I would argue a small part, of the value that questions and answers can bring to the bottom line for any company. 

I think often times we as HR professionals get caught up in trying to sound smart, and in trying to build the most sophisticated, statistically valid survey we just forget to listen.  Employees don't care if you use linear regression models to predict their engagement next year.  Employees want to know that if they share, we will listen, we will acknowledge we have heard them, and we will act when we can.  

About Kirby:

Kirby Cole  Human Resources

Javelin • Making the brand promise personal, profitable and provable.

office 972.443.7138• mobile 972.345.8328  www.javelin.mg

My name is Kirby Cole, and I am a Human Resource and Recruiting Nerd.  I spent the better part of my career in St. Louis, and after a about a year and a half in Dallas I am back living in the Lou.  I went to Hickman High School, am mad a Pujols, and hope the Rams get it together (it’s a St. Louis thing).  I work for an Advertising Agency headquartered in Dallas and work with a great group of people.  I am an HR and Recruiting nerd and think technology can help to advance HR if used properly.  I believe I can help.  I believe that my story can help you write your story.  I believe I can help you find your next job.  I believe I can help lift your spirits during a difficult time in your life.  I believe I know a little about the recruiting game and can folks on both sides of that fence.  I believe in the ideal of great HR making in impact on peoples stories at work and beyond.  I believe in me, and I believe in you.

Follow on Twitter: @joanncorley 
Facebook:www.facebook.com/joanncorley.the1percentcoach Connect on 
LinkedIn-http://www.linkedin.com/in/joanncorley