Complete guide to building surveys that create change

1) Define your survey objectives

When well executed, surveys create lasting positive change within organisations. For this to happen, there needs to be clear and effective objectives from the very beginning. To make sure you are creating clear objectives, there are few points that are useful to keep in mind:

• Define what success looks like to you
• Understand your priorities and values
• Focus on the long term for impactful change
• Clarify your KPIs and benchmarks

2) Ensure surveys are a board level priority

Board members and decision-makers alone have the weight and authority to set objectives, provide necessary resources, and hold teams accountable – all needed to drive change.

Educate board members to get their buy-in, and help them understand how survey data will help:

• Hear employee experiences directly
• Align leadership actions with employee feedback
• Communicate transparently
• Gather ideas for areas of improvement
• Enable fast progress and innovation

3) Take time to plan effective survey questions

When planning your survey, make sure you’re using specific and relevant questions that will help you pinpoint areas of concern.

If you don’t spend time thinking about the way your questions are structured, you risk creating more questions than answers when you try to analyse your results. Here are our top tips for creating effective survey questions:

• Keep it short and simple
• Use a neutral and fair tone
• Don’t ask two things at once
• Avoid leading and loaded questions
• Use broad questions that apply to all respondents
• Use a mixture of open and closed questions
• Focus on questions have easily measured answers

4) Make change where it really matters

Once you have your first few surveys underway, you should use data segmentation and targeted surveys to follow-up with more specific questions to key groups.

With the right data and segmentation capabilities you’ll be able to take focused action and resolve challenges employees are experiencing.

That’s why having software that allows you to target and segment is key – it will help you focus your time and resources on areas where it will make a real difference.

Demographics you may wish to consider are:

• Age
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Job Role
• Seniority
• Location
• Contract Type
• Hybrid Working
• Department
• Parental Status

5) Make accessibility a priority for all employees

Employees are more dispersed and diverse than ever before, and surveys are only effective if all of your employees are able to participate.

They should be able to voice their thoughts, ideas, and feedback no matter who they are, or where they are, and in real-time without friction.

Ways you can ensure everyone can access and answer your surveys:

• Compliance with web accessibility guidelines
• Adjustable and customisable interface
• A dedicated app for iOS and android mobile users

Make your surveys accessible

6) Measure what matters, continuously!

Using regular surveys to continuously gather data helps you understand if the changes you’re making are having the impact you hope for.

It is impossible to determine whether your interventions are working, or whether progress is sustained unless you have continuous and reliable data to work with.

Use feedback from your survey’s open and closed questions alongside KPIs such as absenteeism and employee turnover to get a well-rounded picture.

Ideally, you should be monitoring continuously across several of these metrics to build a clear picture of the situation and how it’s changing.

You also need to consider the right cadence for your surveys otherwise it can lead to survey fatigue, especially if you aren’t closing the loop with your communications.

Every organisation is different and benefits from a different survey schedule – there is no ‘one size fits all’ rule for surveys.

Our best tip is to think about your internal comms cycles and how the surveys fit into those. Coupling the two together is a great way to guarantee you can close the loop on your employee surveys.

7) Adopt a proactive approach

Being proactive and putting in place early interventions can stop problems from developing in the first place, or reduce the likelihood they’ll get worse.

If you notice changes in your data, you have an opportunity to invest in that area of staff engagement before it becomes a bigger concern.

Surveys are a useful tool for this, allowing you to be proactive without a large investment of time.

They will help you gather feedback in a continuous, well-rounded way so you can identify the smallest changes in scores.

A proactive approach to surveys give you the added benefit of creating a culture of openness, which makes employees more willing to sharing their ideas, feedback, and hopes in the future.

At Stribe, we make teams happier. It’s that simple.

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