Employee engagement, or employee satisfaction, surveys are a commonly used tool to assess employee sentiment in healthcare settings. Keeping tabs on how engaged employees are is a leading indicator for ensuring patient satisfaction and engagement.
But, despite the proliferation of these types of assessments, many organizations fail to achieve the engagement and positive results they’re hoping for.
Why?
Because they’re missing two critical steps in the process—the two secrets to getting honest employee feedback:
- Following up with employees to tell them what they learned through their feedback.
- Indicating how they will act on that feedback to make positive improvements.
That lack of follow-through has led to survey fatigue and mistrust among employees. They view lack of feedback as lack of truly caring about them. They’ll share (their feedback) if they feel you care. If not, you really can’t rely on the validity of the results you’re getting from these assessments.
“Worker mistrust leads to flawed data in engagement surveys,” Dave Zielinski points out in an article for SHRM.
Why Follow Up Is So Important
In the same article, Zielinski points to Gartner research indicating that “the key to getting more honest data is to enhance transparency and improve communication with employees at all three stages of the surveying process: before surveys are launched, while data collection is under way, and after survey results are gathered and analyzed.”
Rule number one when conducting any type of survey or assessment is to share the results with the people you surveyed. That’s widely known and yet many organizations fail to take this important step.
Some employers fail to share survey feedback with employees due to oversight; having a plan can help with that. Others, though, fail to share because they don’t like the results. Both of those issues need to be addressed to boost the effectiveness of engagement survey results and your ability to influence employee engagement and satisfaction.
The Importance of Having A Plan Before You Survey
It’s important to have an action plan ready before launching any survey. How and when will you communicate the results of the survey back to employees? How will you synthesize, analyze, and take action to address any issues raised?
Keep in mind that your plan doesn’t have to be “perfect” before you’re ready to move forward. It will never be perfect. But be sure to consider and cover the basics: ensuring that you will share results with employees, and determining how you will act on the information you gather.
Addressing Feedback—Even (and Especially) if it’s Negative
Just as your plan will never be perfect, there’s no such thing as a perfect score on an employee engagement survey. Employees are never 100% engaged and satisfied. Engagement is a moving target that shifts over time with some issues driving a positive reaction, and others taking a toll on employee sentiment.
That’s to be expected. Failing to address feedback, though, especially negative feedback, can drive even greater dissatisfaction.
It’s important to be humble and transparent about imperfections and your desire to improve.
The message back to employees should be: “You spoke. We listened. Here’s what’s happening.” Let your staff know that you value their feedback and input, you want to get better at meeting and exceeding their expectations, you need their help, and you’re committed to being thoughtful and purposeful in how you respond.
Changes may not happen overnight. But as long as employees know you care and that you’re working to make the environment a positive one, they’ll be more forthcoming, providing a win-win outcome for them and the organization.
Still not sure how to proceed or how to improve your engagement survey efforts? We can help.
Tags: employee communication, Employee Engagement, employee feedback, employee recognition, employee satisfaction
