Employee surveys are an incredibly impactful tool for creating an effective workplace. They can uncover all sorts of insights about what’s working well at your organization—and what could use a little work. But when you first get all that raw data back, it can be a little daunting. Read below for a process I like to follow to help clients get what they need from employee survey data.
Take some time to digest the survey data
The first thing you should do when you get that all data is to give yourself time to take it all in. Don’t rush into takeaways. Make space to really dig in and review from start to finish. It’s also important to understand the methodology—what questions were asked, how they were asked, how the data is being presented. Avoid fixating on any single piece and take it in as a whole.
Share with key stakeholders
Once you’ve taken it all in, you’ll want to share that data with your senior leadership team. After all, this data is useless if you’re not getting the word out. This could be with your organization’s CEO, COO, executive director, or vice presidents. I always suggest looking at the big picture and focusing on key themes or takeaways. This offers a great jumping-off point for suggesting or brainstorming strategic shifts based on what you’ve learned.
Share results with employees
It’s so important to keep your employees clued into what’s happening and let them know you’re doing something with their feedback. Play back the initial results of the survey, highlighting areas of opportunities for improvement, and what the plan is for taking action. I always recommend getting that message out sooner rather than later, because if too much time passes after the survey, employees will start wondering if it was all just a waste of time. Even if you don’t have all the answers, it’s important to at least get the conversation started.
Keep following up
I always tell clients that the information gathering process doesn’t stop there once you do the survey. You may have the ratings, but you don’t always get the “why” behind things. That’s when it’s up to the leadership team to keep digging. If every manager asks a few follow-up questions in their one-on-ones, suddenly, you have a lot more feedback that you can use to make more informed decisions moving forward.
As you can tell, turning the raw data of an employee survey into actionable insights that actually improve your workplace can take some effort. And it’s not a process that stops as soon as you have the results. But if you continue to focus on the big picture and dig into the “why” behind the trends, you’ll find that survey data can be a powerful and effective tool in your HR toolkit.