How to Communicate Your Employee Satisfaction Surveys More Effectively?

Before launching your employee satisfaction survey how you communicate each survey to your staff is critical. Clear communication about the survey process encourages participation, which leads to useful data that can help you make better decisions.

You should inform senior executives, managers, and employees about your objectives, goals, and intentions before releasing your employee satisfaction survey. These contacts should take place before the survey invitation is sent out and are separate from the actual invitation to complete the survey.

The objective here is to successfully communicate your plans to everyone who will receive an invitation. If you simply add the employee survey questions and participant information and push send without any warning or explanation, the worst-case scenario will occur.

In this article, we explain how you should approach announcing these surveys to your team.

First, Notify Your Management Team

Your management staff should be the first people you tell about the employee surveys. 

They will be the first point of contact for questions and feedback from employees, therefore it is critical that they are on board and understand why you are doing frequent employee surveys.

You should specify who will have access to the reports, what they may anticipate seeing, and what you intend to do with them. You must inform them of the schedule for implementation and the manner in which you will notify the rest of the organization.

In your communication with the executive team, do not forget to underline the connection between the subject you measured in the survey and the company mission. In this way, you will pave the way for the employee satisfaction survey to be perceived as related to the company culture.

Select a Method for Making Your Announcement

Many companies send out announcements to their employees by email, but we always recommend that you consider other options. Especially by making small reminders in multiple channels, you can underline the issue of employee satisfaction survey and ensure high participation rates from the very beginning.

• It's a good idea to bring it up during team meetings. 
• Put a notice on the workplace intranet about it. 
• Publish news in the digital HR tool where you will convey employee engagement.
• Use your group chat program like Slack, Microsoft Teams.
• If you are back in the offices, hang posters in certain parts of the office.

It may even be worthwhile to combine a few of the above approaches to guarantee that everyone receives the information. 

Consider Your Employees

Before you tell your employees about these employee satisfaction surveys, think about what they're probably wondering. Any announcement should provide answers to a few crucial questions: 

• Why is the survey subject being asked by my company?
• Why is this survey important for company culture and team development?
• Will my comments be kept private? 
• Who is going to view my responses? 
• What will happen to my post-survey suggestions?
• In what ways will this survey be beneficial to me? 

Make a Follow-up Call

While the survey is still open for responses, it's a good idea to follow up with your team to remind them of the value of their input. Make sure that the HR software you use for the employee satisfaction survey is capable of sending reminders to people who have not yet completed the survey. Sending reminders 1-2 times during the survey process would be ideal. Remember, a personal touch from the HR team or senior manager in reminders is more important and motivating.

Communication Following the Survey 

Always be sure to conduct significant internal communication work to show your team that management is genuinely interested in the results of these employee satisfaction surveys. Here are a few steps you can take after the survey;

• Don't Forget to Thank You for Participating

Your communication responsibilities do not end with reminders and follow-ups. It is also very important to thank your employees after the survey is over.

• 3 Right Will Take 1 Wrong

You may want to mention a few key figures and explain what happens next. For example, you can share 3 areas of satisfaction and 1 area that are open for improvement with everyone in an e-mail. Thus, your employees will see the thoughts of their teammates throughout the company, and their commitment will be strengthened with the inference that they have similar feelings.

• Post-Poll Analysis

Post-survey data is often shared by category, but this varies depending on the type, size, and organizational structure of the business.

An example of a multi-layered communication strategy:

Company results: A presentation is made to all staff in a public forum like all company meetings.

Leader-level reports: Initially shared with senior management (and external if possible) benchmarking is provided.

Team-based results: You can observe department, location, or project-based differences in results. It will be important to share each result with the relevant team leader.

Talk About Your Action Plans

A little thanks and the analysis is great, but what about next? Your employees want to hear from HR teams and companies to be active and your suggestions for action against emerging dissatisfaction. Knowing that by announcing your plans and taking action for a better working environment is a very important factor for employee engagement.

As a result;

Employee buy-in and employee engagement will improve, response rates will increase, and your team will be happier. 

Contact our People Experts about how you can create strong internal communication on the same platform as well as the Employee Satisfaction Survey that you can perform from mobile!