Communication is Key to Engagement Survey Success
When it comes to having a successful engagement survey project, a strong internal communication plan is critical. For an engagement survey to be effective you need to have high participation so that you hear as many voices as possible, and communication is key to achieving this. We have seen organizations with participation rates over 90% when executing a great communication plan. A strong communication plan consists of three main parts: pre-survey communication, during-survey communication, and post-survey communication.
Pre-survey communication is the most important of the three parts. If we send email invitations or our interviewers call your employees and they have never heard of us, they are much less likely to take the survey. Let everyone know a survey is coming. Explain to your employees why you want their feedback. Let them know the dates data collection will be open. Provide them with the People Element email address they will be receiving an invitation from. How exactly you share this information can vary depending on the structure and size of your organization. For a successful project, we typically see the following done:
- A high-level person within your organization such as the CEO sends out an all company email letting all employees know about the survey and its intent.
- Put up flyers around your organization detailing the upcoming engagement survey. Make sure you are placing these where people are going to see them!
- Use your company’s blog or intranet to share the project details
- Have an internal contact person that can address any questions people have about the survey and its confidentiality. Make sure this person’s contact information is listed on all communications listed above.
People Element is here to help and will assist you by creating flyers and communication content for emails and blogs. You only need to put up the flyers and hit send!
Once the survey starts, your communication doesn’t end. People Element will send out reminder emails, texts, and continue to call your employees, but what impacts participation most is continuous communication from your organization. Continue sending reminder emails and intranet/blog post updates explaining the importance and reason for the survey and re-iterate that because you’re using People element, the survey is completely confidential. We will send you participation updates throughout the time period of the survey so you can monitor accordingly. We can even break up participation by departments or managers so you can pinpoint exactly where you can focus your communication efforts.
Once the survey collection period is over, thank everyone for participating and let them know what’s happening next. Information to share after the engagement survey collection period has ended should include:
- What was the final participation rate?
- When are the results being reviewed?
- Who will be reviewing the results?
- Once results are reviewed, share the key items you intend to improve.
- What do you intend to do to improve those perceptions?
- With every post-survey communication, make sure to thank your employees for taking the time to complete the survey and remind them that the information they shared is valuable to your organization.
Doing the things above will go a long way to making your employees feel heard and ensuring great participation next time. If an employee feels like they aren’t being listened to or that their voice doesn’t make a difference, they will be much less likely to share their opinions in an engagement survey in the future.
Remember, People element will help you every step of the way. We want you to have a successful project and are here to help. Our client success managers will help you create communication materials for pre-, during-, and post-survey.
