Employee Surveys » Employee Engagement Survey

Why should an organization measure employee engagement?

Extensive research shows that there is a direct correlation between employee engagement and organizational performance. Engaged employees are more productive, profitable and customer service oriented. Engaged employees drive company innovation and have increased tenure. Conducting an employee engagement survey can benefit your organization by showing employees that you have a genuine interest in their feedback.

Survey Goal:

Collecting and measuring employee feedback regarding the most important issues facing your organization will help you identify strengths and areas of improvement. Through this process an organization can identify if employees are committed and aligned with organizational goals and objectives.

Survey Preparation:

Prior to conducting an employee engagement survey consider the following:
Educate and engage leadership in the importance of the entire process. Measuring employee engagement isn’t just about the survey. The survey itself is just the tool to measure the data. Taking steps to correct actionable items will be the key to success in your company employee survey, so getting leadership on board with the process is a necessary step.

Explain the intent for the survey. Having a clear reason for conducting the survey will ensure that employees don’t begin to gossip about intent. Have leadership and managers pro-actively speak about why the survey is important and what they plan on doing with the data after it is collected.

Ask the right questions. If necessary employ the assistance of third-party experts with experience and knowledge. Asking the wrong questions can lead to data that cannot be actionable. A poorly constructed survey can do more harm than good.

Here are some common employee engagement agreement level statements:

• Leadership encourages new ideas or suggestions from employees.
• Leadership keeps me informed about important issues that affect me.
• My supervisor sets clear expectations for my performance.
• Suggestions for improvement are taken seriously.
• I have been given the opportunity to achieve my own personal goals and objectives with the organization.

Use a statistical scale. Choosing a Likert scale to measure levels of engagement is a useful and common practice. Typically organizations use 4 or 5 point Likert scales question types. Four point scales allow for two favorable and two unfavorable positions where Strongly Agree equals 4 and Strongly Disagree equals 1. In the case of a 5-point Likert scale, the options allow for a neutral position, where Strongly Agree equals 5, Neither Agree nor Disagree equal 3 and Strongly Disagree equals one.

Below are examples of those two questions types:

Through the use of SurveyGizmo software you can apply hidden numeric values that represent the value of each option (e.g Strongly Agree equals 5 points) for the purpose of statistical reporting.

Consider third-party confidential administration. Research shows that using a third-party to administer your engagement survey will yield higher participation rates as well as increased truthful and candid responses. Talk to your employees beforehand about your survey provider and let them know how the data will be sliced and diced. Setting up confidentiality rules and displaying those rules within the survey will build a relationship of honesty and trust.

Survey Example

SurveyGizmo offers many types of survey templates, including an employee engagement survey. These can easily be customized to meet your needs and can be branded with your corporate logo and style.

Click image to sample the survey

Report Example

SurveyGizmo provides real-time reporting so that you can view your responses as soon as they come in. We offer summary and filtered reports.

Take action. Don’t let your efforts fall by the waist side. Not taking action can end in decreased morale and lower overall satisfaction. Implementing an action planning process soon after analyzing data is paramount. Finally, clearly communicating changes made as a result of the survey will ensure that employees feel that action was taken as a result of their feedback.

SurveyGizmo also offers third-party consulting, question development, confidential administration, data analysis and custom reporting.

Need Additional Help?

If you are interested in having SurveyGizmo help you with any aspect of the employee engagement process please contact Christina Bell, in Professional Services at 720-496-2134