Employee Satisfaction Surveys – Mending the model to retain your people

Bradley Savoy August 12, 2007

Back when I was in corporate HR, December would roll around and it would once again be time for the employee satisfaction surveys to go out. Thus would begin a process of reminders, encouragement, and pretty much haggling our staff to complete their survey so we would have a high response rate and really understand “what was troubling them.”

These surveys typically aim to measure factors affecting retention and are typically sent every one to two years. The answers uncover varying levels of satisfaction employees have with compensation, work environment, management, culture, and other aspects.

These surveys can be very effective but there are a couple of issues with this model:
Companies usually only ask for the employee perspective once a year – this one point in time perspective can be skewed by the time of year in which you ask. During the holidays I may be happier than another time of year. If I just had a positive review then I’ll give the company positive results. On the flip side, if I’m unhappy with my work on the day I complete the survey, then my opinion can also be skewed negatively. There’s also the consideration of those 11 months that I’ve worked at the company and how my perception has changed over that time. Finally, you’re missing the opinion of all of those people that left the company months ago that you could have retained. This forces the company to be reactive at addressing retention risks.

Companies often do little with the results from the surveys – its not that they don’t care about the opinion of the people, it’s a matter of focus and guidance. Better companies appoint champions in HR and the business to ensure that results of surveys lend towards projects that will move the bar to a more positive perception for the next cycle. But then they have to wait another year to see how their projects have impacted the results.

So how do you mend the broken model?

Ask Early, Ask Often - Organizations should start by measuring retention factors at the hiring stage and throughout an employee’s first year. Studies show that referrals are most likely to occur during an employee’s first ninety days. If you know why your employees are happy that early on, you’ll not only be able to capitalize on that view by attracting more talent, but also ensuring that the messages you’re presenting are based on the feelings of newly tenure people who also just joined the company.

Retention risk is also highest during a new employee’s first six months to one year of tenure. So ask your employees to provide their perception multiple times throughout the year. You’ll capture a trend of perceptions and how they change over time, and you’ll be able to address risks proactively, and with great effect.

Do Something about the results – Enable internal champions to drive the results for you. If you don’t have the internal bandwidth, then engage consultants to come in and guide your results. The worst thing a company can do is ask their people to tell them what they think but then do nothing about it.

Posted in Human Resources Analytics, Employer Branding, HR Analytics, Recruiting