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Survey says...

  • Kindred Works
  • Oct 10
  • 3 min read

Gif. Conan talk show set with a male host in a suit holding a mic, addressing a vibrant audience. Yellow text reads "AND THE SURVEY SAYS..." under bright lights.

Is your employee engagement survey a complete waste of time?


Sending employee surveys is hard - deciding what to ask, convincing your employees to participate, analyzing results, fighting the urge to ignore tough feedback, and whittling it all down to a few action items that you may have a hard time accomplishing.


Despite all this, it is clear that employee surveys - when done right - can improve not only your engagement and culture, but also your trust with your team. So what does it look like to “do it right”? 



Why anything?


Before you decide to send a survey, it’s important to know your “why?” What do you want to get out of this? What exactly are you trying to gauge? Once that is clear, you and your leadership team should commit to (1) respecting the results and (2) finding action items and following through on them to the best of your ability. 



Be Consistent


By keeping a predictable survey schedule, you are sending a few very important messages to your employees:


  1. Feedback is important to your culture and you value your employees’ feedback

  2. You are open to finding and fixing problems

  3. You have a reliable HR / People Ops team

  4. If someone misses their opportunity to fill it out, there will be another



Keep it simple


It’s very likely you are working with a small team and limited resources. If you are sending and analyzing the survey yourself, your best chance at doing it consistently is to keep it simple. If this is the case, you can use the eNPS (employer net promoter score) to calculate a number. This survey measures how likely your employees are to recommend your organization as a good place to work to their friends or family using a score of 1-10. This will quickly set your baseline. Additionally, you can add an open answer, asking “why did you give this score” to gather a digestible amount of anecdotal evidence.


While the eNPS is easy to send and typically leads to high participation, it doesn’t yield as many actionable insights as other surveys (such as Gallup’s Q12). You can supplement the quarterly/biannual/annual eNPS survey with short, specific surveys soliciting feedback after certain company events, such as:


  1. Planning cycle

  2. Performance management cycle 

  3. Changes to communication protocols and rituals

  4. Changes to process

  5. Company events 

  6. New Programs or Benefits



Analyze it quickly


In startups, priorities can change quickly. However, once you commit to a survey, it’s important that you follow through completely - and quickly. Churning over feedback for too long could result in solving problems that are no longer relevant. Once you get your results, try to analyze them within 2 weeks.



Get leadership on board


It’s not up to the survey analyzer to solve every problem. The best way forward is to whittle the results down to the top 3 “things going well” and top 3 “things that could be better.” From there, work with your leadership team to (1) work towards action items and (2) get commitments that they will help follow through on them.



Communicate, communicate, communicate

You should communicate with your team early and often, but especially at these junctures:

  1. Announce: Flag that the survey is coming in a company-wide meeting and remind everyone why it’s being sent and why it’s important for employees to respond.

  2. Send: Email the survey with a clear deadline - and another reminder of the “why?”

    1. Give people enough time to take it to maximize results - typically 2 weeks.

  3. Remind: Send reminders via multiple channels (email, company chats, meetings).

    1. It is important that leadership encourages their departments to take the survey.

  4. Commit: Set a date to present results - and stick to it. Tell the company what you’ve learned in an all-hands meeting and send an email with the notes.

    1. Make sure you share what’s going well and what’s needing improvement.

    2. Responses should be anonymous. Despite this, you should still keep raw results private as much as possible, refraining from sharing outside of HR, your CEO (if they want), and a few trusted leaders (if necessary).

  5. Celebrate: Keep announcing action items as they are completed, celebrating your accomplishments. It is also good to remind your team that these positive changes are a result of their feedback. This will incentivize them to keep responding and increase trust in the organization.

  6. Stay transparent: If an action item gets deprioritized - be honest about it (and why). Again, this increases trust and keeps your employees informed.


If you need help improving your engagement, instilling and/or reinforcing feedback culture, or simply assessing your employees’ sentiment, Kindred Works would be happy to help! 


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