Conducting an Employee Survey
Jun 13th, 2009 by Scott Hebert
Purpose
A common way for organizations to measure the morale of employees is through an attitude survey. Attitude surveys are designed to collect data that management can use for organization diagnosis and planning. Surveys are especially useful in illustrating what problems an organization has. If upper management is not convinced by the original diagnosis produced by organizational developers, an attitude survey can be conduced to lend credence to the diagnosis (Dessler, 2008). Although Company X’s CEO has made many changes over the last two years, the diagnosis conducted by the human resource department has concluded that significant training is needed by both the front line supervisors and production employees. An attitude survey should be conducted to determine how accurate the results of this diagnosis are and how effective the previous changes made by the CEO have been.
Survey Layout
In order to be effective, a survey must be well-designed. The previously conducted research indicated that the staff is suffering from poor communication and a lack of production-oriented training. Therefore, communication and training will be the main focus of this survey. Additionally, general attitude related questions will be included to get an indication of how the employees are generally feeling about the organization. The staff has previously indicated that the production lines are working at a frantic pace. Therefore, it is important that the survey be short enough so that employees can complete it during break periods. The survey will be relatively short consisting of only 10 to 20 questions.
Administration
Studies have shown that online surveys are advantageous for organizations thanks to reduced processing time and lower costs. Additionally, advanced online reports can grant managers immediate access to the data and allow them to query the data in ways that are meaningful to them. Finally, research has shown that online surveys do not affect outcomes. This means that there is no real concern that the data may be skewed because the survey is conducted online (Agnvall, 2007).
In order to encourage employee participation, computers should be made readily available for employees that do not use computers in their normal work. These computers should be placed in common areas, especially where employees take breaks or eat lunch. During scheduled break and lunch times, human resource representatives should be on hand to assist employees who may have questions regarding the survey system (Agnvall, 2007).
Anticipated Results
It is anticipated that this survey will produce three results. First, employee morale in the Company X Tech Division is expected to be low. Next, it is expected that survey results will indicate that both front line supervisors and production line employees will indicate unacceptable levels of communication. Finally, production line employees are expected to indicate that training is necessary for those working on the production lines. Although the original diagnosis called for management development training for front line supervisors, it is not anticipated that supervisors will recognize the need for this training themselves.
Communication
Gathering information through a survey is meaningless if managers do not share the information with their team members. Small-group communication is often the most difficult to control since even small groups tend to form sub-groups and establish individual roles (Clegg, Kornberger, & Pitsis, 2008). With this in mind, management should be ready to present survey results tailored to the individual natures of their team members. General results can be presented to the team as a whole, and then individual discussion session can be scheduled so that team members can ask questions without the pressure created by group dynamics.
References
Agnvall, E. (2007). Collecting Feedback. HRMagazine, 52(10), 85-89. Retrieved June 13, 2009, from MasterFILE Premier database.
Clegg, S., Kornberger, M., & Pitsis, T. (2008). Managing and organizations: An introduction to theory and practice (2nd ed.). London: SAGE.
Dessler, G. (2008). Human resource management (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.