Your people are the heart and soul of your company. When employee engagement is high, the whole team benefits—and so do your customers.
You likely know that employee engagement surveys are an excellent way to measure and improve the employee experience. But how do your people feel about this approach? What does it mean to them that you’ve taken the time and effort to ask thoughtful survey questions?
Let’s take a walk in your people’s shoes to see an employee engagement survey from their point of view.
What does employee engagement look like?
The first thing your people notice about your survey process is that it has a clear goal: measuring employee engagement and making improvements to keep teams happy. So what does “employee satisfaction” look like to your teams?
Here are a few examples of elements that positively impact employee perception and engagement:
- Security: Workers trust their leaders to make smart, reliable decisions.
- Support: Your company culture and internal communication are welcoming and helpful, even when mistakes are made.
- Morale: Employees face challenges with optimism instead of dread, happily working together to overcome hardship.
- Confidence: Engaged employees know they’re a valuable member of the team. Their skills are celebrated and appreciated every day.
- Meaning: Working at your company means making a difference in the world, and employees know their efforts matter.
While these details are important to overall employee morale, they’re not always easy to measure. That’s why an employee engagement survey is an important tool: It gives team members a direct line to leaders like you, allowing them to make their voices heard. Sometimes, the difference between a disengaged employee and a happy, satisfied one is a single survey.
How do employees view an engagement survey?
Picture this: You’ve spent weeks thinking about the employee experience, crafting ideal survey questions, and planning for employee feedback. You’re finally ready to present the completed survey to your teams. What thoughts will they have about this opportunity?
Let’s take a look:
“My company cares about my feedback.”
When someone sees you put time, effort, and thought into an engagement survey, they know you care about the employee experience. It’s immediately obvious that you’re interested in measuring things like real-world feedback and employee morale, all with the goal of making life better for your teams.
“My leaders want to make a difference.”
Workers know that employee engagement survey results will help leaders make better decisions—an obvious sign that your business is dedicated to personal and professional growth. These actionable insights give leaders the tools they need to become better versions of themselves, thereby helping teams do the same thing.
“I can shape the employee experience for myself and my coworkers.”
One big benefit of an employee engagement survey is the feeling that workers play an active role in shaping company culture. As they answer survey questions and think about their own engagement levels, your people are taking part in something much bigger than themselves.
Using employee engagement survey results in ways that matter
It’s clear that workers care about employee engagement surveys. Here’s how to put their interest to good use by leveraging survey data in ways that have real impact:
Learn from the good and the bad
If you get negative feedback on a certain question, you’ll have actionable insights and a lot of helpful information about experience management, employee morale, and more. However, good feedback is a learning opportunity, too. Use positive survey results as a chance to identify and protect your best choices.
Don’t translate feedback
Employees should feel comfortable answering each survey question in their own words. Don’t be tempted to translate this to corporate language; instead, listen to those unfiltered voices and learn from their honesty.
Show your work
Once you’ve compared all your survey questions, measured employee satisfaction, and set to work on engagement improvements, remember to keep workers in the loop. The advantages of sharing feedback with your employees are numerous. Shareback:
- Simplifies communication
- Strengthens team relationships
- Drives business change
- Improves workplace culture.
Start boosting engagement with employee surveys
Employee engagement surveys are your opportunity to put worker voices in the spotlight. As a result, your people will feel seen, heard, and appreciated. This alone is a great way to improve engagement—but you’ll also get survey data and feedback that will help boost employee retention, simplify experience management, and empower your workplace.
Are you ready to choose survey questions that will shine light on the employee experience and give you the insights you need to improve? Get started with Alida’s Voice of the Employee—a simple but powerful way to keep your finger on the pulse of employee engagement
