Making sense of employee survey results.
This week I reviewed the 2018 employee survey results with my department. I’ll be honest; deciphering survey results is a challenge for a variety of reasons. Questions are interpreted differently. Similar questions with slight nuances yield measurably different answers. Survey results are influenced highly by what is happening at that moment in time (mergers, hiring freezes, large customer wins, new managers, etc.)
I first reviewed the results with the managers in the department. We discussed questions with the highest and lowest favorable scores. When we did this within a small group, we found different interpretations of the survey question. The process was useful because we had a healthy dialogue about the findings. But there was enough diversity of opinion that I wondered how employees would feel about our resulting actions.
Traditions.
The guidance from human resources and my history with employee surveys fit a set model. Employees take a survey. Management reviews the results. Then management responds with actions to address the areas with the lowest favorable scores. In this model, all the responsibility for action is on the management team.
Then I dug deeper and realized,
getting the most value out of employee survey results requires a more holistic approach than a set of management action items.
I reviewed all the question categories and realized they touch on interpersonal actions between all employee classifications in the company. So why would we respond by assigning action items only to the management group?
Changing the survey results approach.
I used the core findings in the results to create action items for the entire department. We can’t transform culture within a group only by having managers changing rules, policies, and workflows. To improve in areas like collaboration, trust, empowerment, and agility requires all employees work together as a cohesive unit.
I challenged the team with this thought, the first step on a journey for job satisfaction is looking in the mirror.
It’s age-old advice to focus first on your own behaviors and attitudes. I followed with a paradox for success,
our personal success and how we view our job depends on how successful we make our colleagues, manager, and customers.
The employee survey questions had little to do with technology, tools, or things. The questions focused on communications and interactions between people. Our definition of success, or our inclination to mark a favorable answer, is directly influenced by how successful we make our coworkers and customers. If we think more about how we can give, rather than how we receive, then we’ll go farther and find more job satisfaction. This is a better recipe to maximize employee engagement.
Onward and upward!
Photo Credit: USFWS Mountain-Prairie via Creative Commons