It is around 100 years since the first recorded employee surveys in the 1920s. So, for the last 100 years we have asked employees what they think about working in the company. Some employees have bonuses linked to the results and others discount responses as ‘unrealistic’. Most people have moved beyond the notion that all employee surveys are anonymous and many simply don’t complete it without persuasion. As a result, we look at how we could be developing employee experience beyond simple employee surveys.
Employee surveys
The humble employee survey, staff survey, care survey or employee engagement index is long-established. We know that a well-designed survey can achieve a normal distribution of results. We also know that most workers have doubts about the benefit, the anonymity and the degree to which feedback is acted upon. Somehow, we moved from a place of a survey to gauge how well the company is performing to one which many view cynically. There are many examples of companies extolling the virtues of their corporate strategy and highly-motivated people who were subsequently met with walkouts, strikes or viral videos.
Motivations behind employee surveys
Unfortunately, some companies link remuneration to the results of employee surveys. The score directly drives one or more objectives to achieve their bonus payout. The pros are that it focuses attention on employee feedback and on improving the results. The cons are that it distorts behaviour (more on that later) and heaps pressure on staff to complete the survey. That’s right, it doesn’t always look good to have a low response rate and high scores.
The inconvenient truth is that when remunerated in this way, most senior leaders are terrified of the results. Despite most employee surveys encouraging anonymous comments, not all are insightful, professional or completely anonymous. At the intersection between apathy and anathema, staff may ignore the survey entirely or see it as a chance to get even. Conversely, at the intersection of attainment and ambition, others see it as a chance to get rewarded. In summary, the results can be unpredictable.
Survey response rates
Unlike local or general elections in the UK, the level of turnout matters. If the survey is sent to 1,000 staff, then leaders expect the majority to respond. The rationale is simple – low response rates indicate low employee engagement. When bonus schemes are tied to the number of responses and the overall score, it distorts behaviour. It isn’t unusual for reminder emails to become more frequent. Meetings and conference calls stress the importance of responding. Managers are encouraged to ‘have a word’ with those who have not completed the survey or if their team has a low response rate. It isn’t out of the question for some managers to resort to overt threats for non-completion, busting the myth that the company cares and that the survey is truly anonymous.
Driving the score
Okay, so 98% of your 1,000 employees responded to the survey. Great. However, the result isn’t quite what you expected. Let’s take two possible scenarios that we the team at Think Beyond have witnessed in the past.
In scenario 1, the first quarter’s survey scored 3.8 out of 5.0 and this quarter scored 3.9 out of 5.0 despite our best efforts. The result has improved so it must be a good news story, right? In this scenario, you would expect management to shout about the changes they have made. To highlight improvements, the best comments are cherry-picked. Overall, this is a good news story and there is still plenty of room for improvement. The most negative comments are stripped out and one or two ‘actionable’ comments are declared as focus areas.
In scenario 2, the second quarter scored 3.7 out of 5.0. Hmm, what happened there? Despite all of our talk about employee engagement and increased communication, the score fell by 0.1 from 3.8 last quarter. This time, we really need to understand what happened. The senior leaders are spooked that this result could be misinterpreted. As a group, they pick apart the results and all of the anonymous comments. However, they notice that in one team, the comments are a little unprofessional in their opinion. As a result, they chalk up the result to a few disgruntled staff.
A different way of developing employee experience
The truth of the matter is this. Not all employees answer surveys truthfully, however good we think the survey is. Additionally, not all senior leaders play fair. Yes, that’s right, some try to influence the score in innovative ways, such as announcing an office refurbishment one week before the survey is sent out. Shock horror! This can happen even if there is no link between the results and remuneration. No senior leader enjoys a source of embarrassment in front of their peers or their leader. So, what can we do differently? Enter neuroscience.
Unlike a traditional employee survey, we are less interested in what you think, more how you feel. It’s true that you can ask such questions in a typical survey. You can even design the survey to try to lessen the obvious nature of such questions. However, you will still see bias for two reasons: firstly, the part of the brain responsible for language is different to the part responsible for emotion and we find it hard to explain in words how we feel; secondly, the context of the employer-employee relationship means that staff will have unconscious biases towards the company, the leadership, their manager, colleagues and the workplace that mean not all answers will be 100% truthful. Using a combination of tests to deduce bias and association paired with online measurement tools, we harvest anonymised data on the emotional response of your people.
Employee surveys are a thing of the past
The old, tired employee survey is a relic. If organisations are truly serious about employee experience, the only option is to get rid of it or complement it with something else. If we are serious about gaining our employees’ trust, we have to preserve anonymity at all costs. We also need to stop disregarding comments we don’t believe cast us in a good light. Using neuroexperience techniques, we help you measure how your people feel about working in your business. Get to the heart of how people feel, where their biases are and the associations with defined organisational concepts. So, if you are a CEO, MD or COO looking to boost your EX, retain your staff or attract the best and brightest, maybe it’s time to think differently about staff surveys.
Setting employee surveys straight
Think Beyond offers a range of neuroscientifically supported research services applied to employee and customer experience, brands, advertising and packaging. All of our studies are bespoke and tailored to the organisations with which we work. We work anonymously, with simple online links and instructions provided to your people. We also never share individual results, with all scores aggregated to department or divisional level. In summary, we want to boost the accuracy of your results and restore confidence in employee surveys.
If you would like to speak to us about developing employee experience, simply call us on 01565 632206. Alternatively, simply email your query to sales@think-beyond.co.uk or add a few details to request a call back.
Finally, why not check out a related article on EX measurement and on team restructuring to increase EX.