It is safe to say that for the majority of businesses, when you have a great team working for you, you will want to keep them happy. That way, you have a better chance of retaining them and keeping that hard work ethic and positivity in the workplace, where you, your team, and the company can benefit from it.

However, there will be times during the role as a manager or owner of a business when you may notice that some of your staff members are beginning to lag in creativity and may start turning up late for work or simply not have the motivation that they need to complete tasks. So what can you do about this?

Generally speaking, there are 2 options to start with. You can call the employee or employees into your office to discuss any underlying issues that they are having, or you can roll out an employee engagement survey.

The purpose of having an engagement survey for your employees is so that you and other senior staff members can understand what it is that keeps your staff ticking, as well as identify potential issues in the workplace which may be causing them to become disinterested.

These kinds of surveys allow open and honest feedback and provide the perfect option for communication to flow through your company and help support staff who are struggling. You can also integrate these surveys into your offboarding software to streamline the exit process, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of employees’ experiences.

This all sounds good, but what are the best ways to do this so that your staff will feel that they will not be singled out if they highlight a problem? Here are some top tips to consider.

Establish the Need For The Survey

Before you launch any kind of employee surveys, you and other senior members of the team will need to assess the clear objectives as to why the survey is needed. You need to have a clear reason for what you want to understand and motives for what you want to achieve. As mentioned earlier, these are typically areas for improvement in measuring employee satisfaction and understanding the company culture. This way, you can tailor the survey questions appropriately and align any results that you find with your organization’s strategic vision.

It’s worth noting at this point that having more than one survey for your staff to undertake is perfectly reasonable.

Express The Benefits

Many people will have seen the meme that is online, wherein somebody states that they highlighted the issues in their workplace and that they cannot wait to lose their job later in the week, even though the survey is anonymous. This is a fear that many staff members will have if they point out problems that will be identified as an issue. So, to prevent this, you need to be transparent during the survey rollout to your team about why the survey is being done, how their engagement with it will benefit both them and the organization, as well as highlighting whether or not it is or is not anonymous and that they will not get in trouble. By outlining the purpose and emphasizing the importance of the feedback, you can ensure that you will get honest responses.

Make Sure It Anonymous

As tempting as it is to aim to identify who said what in a survey, this is not going to benefit anyone in the long term. So, to ensure that any surveys that are given remain anonymous, many managing teams will use anonymous survey platforms to collect the responses and communicate to employees undertaking the survey that their responses will remain completely confidential. Remember, in most cases, the point of the survey is to assess areas for improvement, and your staff is less likely to do this if they feel they’re going to get in trouble. So, keep it anonymous!

Make Sure It’s Well Structured

This is where some team managers may need some help from an external agency.

As any research and development department will tell you, crafting the right survey questions is essential for gathering the data that you need. For many of these surveys, it is best to focus on open-ended questions, which can allow your team to express their thoughts in detail. You could use mixes, such as a Likert scale, multiple choice questions, and open-ended questions, which will capture both quantitative and qualitative data.

Both of these datasets can be analyzed to draw conclusions using different software and analysis, but if you don’t have a well-designed set of questions, then it is all for nothing.

Test The Survey

You will need to conduct a pilot study to test the survey. To do this, you should hire a small group of employees, as this will allow you the insight to spot any potential issues with the survey, such as unclear wording, technical glitches, and simply confusing questions. Aim to assess the data that has been gathered from the pilot group and make the necessary adjustments before you launch the entire survey to the rest of your team.

Get The Timing Right

When you are finally able to roll out the survey, you will need to choose the appropriate time. The best periods for these surveys to be conducted tend to be quieter, so avoid busy periods such as major projects or holiday seasons. Simply put, your team is not going to have the mental energy to respond adequately. Also, if you can, try to avoid giving this survey on a Friday afternoon, as chances are it will simply be rushed so your team can leave. In most cases, it is best to have these surveys given out or uploaded on a Monday, with the deadline of being completed by Wednesday, as this is when people are most receptive and engaged.

Encourage Your Team To Take It

Lastly, you will obviously need to ensure that as many members of your team as possible will take the survey. Aim to communicate with them about it regularly via emails, internal messaging platforms, and team meetings. Remember, you should emphasize the survey’s significance and how the results will benefit the workplace for everybody to ensure that as many people as possible partake in it.