How Not to Do an Employee Engagement Survey

I have to confess -- one of my favorite projects in the world of employee engagement and internal communications is the employee survey. It can be a tremendous tool for learning trigger points and concerns within the organization; and it can be a path to greatness for companies that are already doing pretty well on the engagement front.

Earlier this year, the company for which I was working decided to do such a survey -- in fact, that was almost certainly one of the things that brought us together. They'd never done a survey, and they had no real idea what their employee population thought.

I explained my usual approach and I outlined the timeline. Too often, companies say, "We're going to do a survey!" Then the employees complete the survey and the company has no idea what to do with the data, or how to present it.

So, when I perform a survey, I follow a pretty strict approach. I'll leave the survey open for a pre-determined amount of time (and that's communicated initially). Then, I'll usually take a week-ish to compile the data and another week to present the data to the executives -- for a few reasons. First, they shouldn't be surprised by anything they see; and second, this allows them to start to decide which areas they wish to concentrate on, initially.

From there, I usually advise the results be published ... not just the cherry-picked ones; but everything. And, simultaneously, the top 2 or 3 initiatives for the year (from that survey) will be identified. This means, within two weeks of the survey's close, the entire organization knows how the entire organization feels and -- also -- what leadership will focus on.

Some time ago, I read an excellent article about surveys and best practices. It asked readers to rate themselves on a variety of facets and award themselves points for how well they did. One of the first categories was "revealing the results" to the enterprise, and -- if a company selected "we won't/don't do that" - it was something like minus 200 points ... it functionally ensured you couldn't score a positive outcome, even if you did everything else perfectly. If you can't reveal your results, you've already failed the first test of transparency.

In this particular case, the organization had -- what I considered -- a pretty good culture. People didn't really leave; turnover wasn't an issue. I expected this would be one of those "help a good company become even better." We set up a fairly comprehensive survey (perhaps even more comprehensive than I'd usually use) -- and, even more oddly -- the owner asked that every senior leader be evaluated individually (typically I'll lump "managers" and "directors/VPs" into their own categories; but in this case, each department head was named and evaluated individually).

In general, I have a "don't ask questions you don't already know the answers to" policy. In previous organizations, I've been fortunate enough to learn the culture and workforce that -- in many ways -- the survey (at least the initial benchmark one) is more of a validation for me; I've already been working on the next steps. And, this time was no exception -- I'd already spoken with plenty of staff, so I had an idea of what to expect.

A few days after the survey launched, the owner asked me for the results. The survey was scheduled to run for two weeks; so I explained answers this early might not be representative. Nevertheless, I handed the results over (which were, honestly, quite good).

And the next day, I received a panicked text, demanding me to take the survey down. When I asked why, apparently the fact that not every response was exemplary had upset her considerably. She was irate and bitter about some of the answers. Strangely enough, the overall engagement was in the high-80s; and the issues being raised were commonplace for what had -- at one time -- been a small business that was now more of a mid-sized organization ... growing pains. I'd already suspected that from earlier conversations; so I was preparing a strategy around that.

I talked her off the ledge; but only for the day. That conversation repeated itself twice more that week; until finally, she said she would wait to see the results.

Sadly, after assembling the results into a presentation format, it became obvious there would never be a presentation. The decision was made to scrap the initiative completely. In fact, in some ways, Covid came along at the exact right time, because the organization functionally shuttered for two months (relegating the survey to the 'forgotten' realm).

But, what people fail to realize -- ignoring what's said in such a survey; pretending it never happened -- doesn't mean those issues no longer exist ... just the opposite, in fact. And, one of the things I've always touted is that it's important to know those issues (and act on them), because -- once you show you're not willing to have those conversations, you'll never hear them again (but, they absolutely will persist). I'd always rather have those conversations; I'd always rather know the things colleagues are saying, than be ignorant of those issues. I can't correct things if I'm unaware of them.

It's important to keep your finger on the pulse of your workforce. It's important to keep those lines of communication open. But, ultimately, if you decide to ask your colleagues about their engagement; you need to follow through. There are no positive outcomes when you prematurely stop. In this case, some people had spent -- easily -- two hours on their submissions, which were incredibly insightful and well-thought-out. Now, they were functionally told "your views don't matter." And, in fact, it was worse than that -- no one even wanted to see their submissions.

It's hard enough to keep people engaged; there's no reason to make things harder.