Use Employee Satisfaction Surveys to your Advantage

Have you ever wondered why some employers, your own or those of your friends or family members appear to be dedicated to employee satisfaction surveys? Typically, there are two common reasons (not corporate answers) that some companies seem fixated on surveys.

First, the organization is sincere about learning how their employees “feel” about their jobs and their employer. The company wants to know how their staff views their jobs and their employer.

Other companies are looking for a “magic bullet.” They seem to know that their employees may not be thrilled with the workplace and hope to learn why, so they can fix the problem. Of course, there is no silver bullet.

Creating a motivated, inspired, exciting workplace takes serious thought, time and commitment. Yet, employers that utilize employee surveys are, at least, trying to improve workplace conditions.

Questions to Ask Your Employer about Satisfaction Surveys
Employee surveys can take a wide variety of form, content, and purpose. If possible, you should ask management some questions before, during, and/or after you receive employee surveys.

• What will the survey be used for? Management should tell you the specific purpose(s) of any employee survey. This information will help you better understand the corporate focus of your employer and clarify cloudy issues you may have concerning your career path.
  
  
• Are employees going to be asked to suggest topics and/or questions for the survey? For reasons that should be obvious, satisfaction surveys containing questions suggested by staff tend to be more valuable for measuring the “mood” of the employee group.
  
  
• Are all answers totally confidential? Confidentiality is critical to the validity of employee responses. If not assured, you might understandably modify your answers—and you might think you need to for job protection.
  
  
• Who will have control of the answers and data? Even if you receive assurance that answers are confidential, you should know who controls this information. If anyone, but senior management controls this data, you might be tempted to alter your answers, once again.
  
  
• What are management plans if results display low employee satisfaction? Depending on your relationship with and/or the respect level you feel with management, this may be an easy or challenging question. But you should know how management plans to act after results are correlated. Are they committed to continuing those policies that generate high satisfaction? Are they planning to improve policies that are not working?
  
  
• Are employee focus groups going to be used to analyze, interpret and recommend action, if appropriate, after survey results are tabulated? If no staff focus groups will discuss survey results, who will interpret this data? Should employee focus groups be used to analyze results, how will group members be selected? What is their authority to suggest changes?

The questions you ask about satisfaction surveys may provide you with answers to some critical information about your current employer. The factors that are most important to employees often depend on individual preferences. But there are some constant concerns that most employees have with all jobs and employers. Think about these and others that are personally meaningful; they may help you determine if you and your employer are a good fit for the long term.

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