So you’ve conducted an employee engagement survey? You’ve gathered some excellent employee feedback, but what do you do with it? Effectively applying employee engagement survey results shows your staff that their voices and time matter.
Employee engagement surveys, also called eNPS surveys, provide HR professionals with powerful information. When conducted anonymously, you can expect thoughtful answers that lead to actionable insights. If your company wants to improve, you can’t shy away from the work after the survey. Applying employee engagement survey results effectively turns cultures around. This blog provides a high-level framework for what to do after your employees send back the employee engagement survey.
Thank employees for their time
This is an easy win for your team. Even if you’ve spent the last couple of weeks hounding staff for survey responses, you need to thank them for giving you their time. Consider sending an email either from your HR team or CEO in which you can express gratitude and reiterate the importance of this survey. Many of these eNPS surveys reveal that employees feel underappreciated, so consider this your first step toward turning that around.
Analyze survey results
Employee engagement survey results without thorough analysis are a waste of everyone’s time. This step requires knowledge of data analysis software programs and best practices, so it might not hurt to seek the help of a consultancy like ADDA to get this right.
The amount of data gathered varies based on the size of your company and the survey. One helpful approach to analyzing these results is to segment your employees based on their team or function.
Your overall survey results might indicate a happy staff, but if you dig deeper into segments, some teams could be much more content than others. Identifying gaps in engagement empowers your team to allocate resources and attention where they’ll be most impactful.
If you already have strong data skills and software on your HR team, those employees can run with it! Otherwise, an outsourced solution can fill that need while the rest of your team focuses on the strategic applications of the survey findings.
Communicate results to leadership
After your team has analyzed the employee engagement survey results, you must communicate your findings to leadership. Here, you’ll focus on educating managers and department heads on how their teams responded. In doing so, you can get everyone on the same page before sharing with their employees. It’s also critical that they see where they’re succeeding and have room to grow.
Similarly, you’ll want to communicate your findings with executive-level leadership so they know where their organization stands currently. Crucially, this information will help you secure the buy-in you might need to enact significant changes as required.
This step is also a great time to hear out leaders on what they think is going on with their teams and how they can improve some shortcomings. Moreover, if one of the managers is crushing it, try to gauge what they’re doing differently to produce such positive results.
Share findings with employees
Whether you share over an all-hands or email, take time to show your employees their ideas were heard. Though, don’t just bombard them with columns of data and charts. Instead, explain what you learned about employee satisfaction, company culture, employee engagement, and more. Be thoughtful about what you communicate to employees and how you do it.
Moreover, be open to feedback about what you share in this step. Perhaps your team got something wrong during data analysis, or the employees understood a question differently when answering. Now is the time to see how employees react to your insights before you get too far in the weeds of your action plans. After everyone has received the information, encourage teams to meet and discuss it with their managers!
Create an action plan and share it
If your company hasn’t conducted an employee engagement survey before, you might be staring down an imposing array of areas for growth. We encourage you to remember that massive cultural improvements take time and consistent effort. Think of a strong culture as the accumulation of many small positives.
Your action plan can start by narrowing the focus to a few things you can begin to address immediately. Then, by plucking the lower-hanging fruit, your HR team builds momentum and some proof of concept. That will come in handy when you need buy-in on the more significant initiatives.
Designate a lead to drive the project along and track progress for each part of the action plan. Document everything thoroughly with dates on a timeline and specific markers of success. While the timeline doesn’t need to be rigidly adhered to, it will help hold everyone accountable to keep things moving.
Follow up and measure the efficacy
The truth is that the first employee engagement survey was just the beginning. Regular follow-ups and employee pulse checks are critical if HR and leadership want to see how the initiatives affect the company. Software services such as Lattice and Culture Amp make it easy to automate pulse surveys so that you can receive regular feedback from employees.
These surveys don’t need to be as robust as the first employee engagement survey. Instead, you’ll want them to explicitly target pulse surveys to the few initiatives you’re working on. For example, if you identified communication as an area for improvement, include one or two questions to measure employee satisfaction with communication.
Making pulse checks a consistent part of your employee engagement project will help HR see what’s working all year round. That is much more actionable than addressing everything in bulk after your yearly employee engagement survey.
Improve employee engagement with ADDA!
We love employee engagement surveys, but we know they are just one tool among many to build a better company culture. So if you want to improve employee engagement and satisfaction, contact us today to learn how ADDA consultants can help.
