7 Ways to Respond to Employee Surveys
Asking your workers to complete an employee satisfaction survey is an excellent way to gauge and respond to your team’s needs. Regularly checking in with your staff in this manner is great, but it is equally important to act on their feedback. Check out these seven ways to respond to surveys.
1. Share the results
After you’ve collected and reviewed all the surveys, share what you’ve learned. If you don’t disclose the results, you might deepen any problems your team already has. When you share your findings, highlight the good and the bad so everyone knows you’re not hiding anything.
2. Select key areas to focus on
If your surveys reveal multiple problem areas, don’t try to fix everything at once; you’ll end up being overwhelmed and might not be able to address the issues effectively. Instead, pick one key area to focus on, so your team knows that you’re taking their feedback seriously.
3. Ask questions
Your workers may not have been able to explain their issue fully in the survey, so don’t assume you know what they meant. After you’ve chosen a key area to work on, send follow up questions to find out what’s really going on.
For example, if your team has concerns about communication, find out if they think you don’t communicate enough, or if you need to back off sometimes and give them space to do their work. They could also mean that the company isn’t being transparent enough and they want to be included in some of the decision making. You won’t know the details until you ask.
Read also: 4 Tips for Improving Communication in Your Workplace
4. Brainstorm solutions
Hold a brainstorming session with your staff to find potential solutions to the problem. Since your team brought it to your attention in the first place, they might have some creative and effective ideas on how to fix the issue.
5. Build a plan
Once you have potential ways to fix the problem, you’ll be able to create an action plan. Assign dates to different aspects of the strategy so everyone can monitor the changes and will recognize that you’re making efforts to improve the current situation.
Read also: How to Be a Better Manager: 8 Areas to Improve
6. Implement the changes
Once you have a plan, put it into action. Encourage your staff to give you feedback throughout the process, so you can adjust as necessary.
7. Follow up
Continue to regularly send employee surveys to make sure your small business is moving in the right direction and making progress. If your next survey reveals that your original focus area has improved tremendously, tackle the next issue. Because you’ve shown your staff that you will address their concerns, they’ll be more likely to continue giving you feedback.
Learn more about how to create an effective employee survey.
