We’re a small team, how can we run employee surveys that matter?
For smaller teams, employee surveys can be a confusing endeavour resulting in two key questions:
"If we do a survey, will we learn anything we didn't already know?"
"With our small size, how can we give the team confidence that the survey is truly anonymous so we get honest responses
For smaller teams expecting to remain small and mighty as well as those expecting to grow in number, employee surveys can be especially beneficial in creating a trusted forum for anonymous feedback. Adopting surveys effectively can help even small companies better understand risk before it comes to fruition, create a culture of continuous improvement, and strengthen engagement. Even without the statistical significance, these surveys can have major practical significance.
So how can small companies maximize the upside of employee surveys while minimizing the downside? Here are some strategies to help small companies capture big wins from their employee survey.
Focus on topics that matter and which could result in action
When launching a survey, it sure is tempting to throw every question into the mix because of course we care about every dimension of the employee experience! Some questions to help establish a baseline on general measures of employee satisfaction are certainly helpful, but remember, the longer the survey, the lower the completion rate. Period. So use the "real estate" of questions carefully.
Based on your industry or work environment, there may be risks that the company needs to get ahead of. For example, are your team members often navigating challenging customer interactions, or hearing about trauma or violence which could have psychological impacts, or often at various offsite locations where physical health and safety is a top priority. Use these factors to identify areas of focus for the survey.
Additionally, focus on topics that the company is willing to act on in the near future, ideally before the next survey or soon thereafter. Being a small team, with limited resources focusing on questions that could result in action could mean some important tradeoffs. A concise and focused survey helps build confidence that the company may actually do something about the results.
Manage open text questions carefully
We want to know why you strongly agree or just agree! Please tell us, here's a comment box, no limit on word count!
Yes, comment fields are a wonderful thing. It's like we get to have an anonymous conversation with a respondent! Awesome, right? The way we write, is often similar to how we speak, so this comment box could identify someone quite easily. Maybe not with the first comment field, but perhaps the third or fourth. With fewer respondents, open text questions can inadvertently identify a respondent, so use them sparingly.
Bonus Tip: when analyzing the responses, work with a neutral third party who can translate comments into themes so that anyone receiving the data who is familiar with the team members wouldn't be able to identify individual respondents.
Space out surveys enough to allow for progress
Should we run the survey quarterly, annually, semi-annually, every full moon, or every time a new iPhone is released?
There is no perfect survey frequency, though given the limited resources of a small team, it's important to consider if the frequency we land on gives us enough time to make any progress from one survey to the next. With no action between surveys, the value to employees from completing it, diminishes. Additionally, in a small team, more frequent surveys may capture reactions to specific events rather than a holistic experience and run an even higher risk of identifying individual respondents.
Communicate the survey with optimism and honesty
Communication about the survey can make or break the employee survey process. Who is the message coming from, what is the message, how is it delivered? Every company has their communication style - when important things need to be shared, is it an email, email + meeting, Slack message, pigeon + email, something else?
Choose the route that says, "this is an all-hands, team effort, that we need to do for each other". Running a survey is not only about pinpointing what isn't working, but a chance to find out what makes this team tick and hold onto that as the team grows and evolves. Let the team know that! Be honest about how the survey is being done in a way that helps ensure confidentiality and anonymity, and share how the survey data is going to be used i.e., to make decisions about how we operate. Be open about measures to be taken in the process to provide confidentiality such as only sharing and reporting data in aggregate and not broken down by department or team, unless a team has more than __ responses (usually 5 or 6). If this is not the first survey, let the team know what actions have been taken since the last survey.
Bonus Tip: Inspire confidence in the survey by working with a neutral third party to host the survey on a platform outside of your typical tech stack which could link responses to a user account. Tell the team about the measures taken to make sure responses are truly anonymous.
Make action planning a team effort
So we have the survey data, what are we going to do about it? Share the results and open up discussion. Since you've focused the survey on areas that matter to the business and that the team is willing to act on, these insights could offer solutions or lead to a viable solution.
Just as your work is agile and iterative, how you design your operations can certainly be that way as well. Engage the team in action planning and iterating on past initiatives launched as a result of the survey.
In conclusion…
Surveys can and do matter even for smaller organizations. There’s no perfect number however, generally after around 10-15 employees is a good time to consider the need to implement surveys and other mechanisms to assess the health of your work environment. Surveys are not a replacement for ongoing open and honest dialogue, but help complement these efforts with a birds’ eye view of the employee experience. Working with a skilled external advisor, surveys can be even more impactful and help yield more honest results, while managing limited resources of a small team effectively.
Is it time to review your employee survey questions and/or process? PeopleStrategy.ca can help!
Farzeen, Founder & Principal
farzeen@peoplestrategy.ca