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What do employees want for the summer party? How high is the stress level in the various departments? And how much trust do employees actually have in their managers? From the perspective of the HR department and company management, one would sometimes wish to be able to look into the heads of the employees, but there are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to employee surveys. We have gathered some thoughts and best practices here - for specific legal advice, please contact a specialized law office.
In Germany, there is no legal basis on which a company can oblige its employees to take part in an employee survey, therefore surveys of always have to be carried out voluntarily. To protect employee data and reduce concerns about negative consequences in the case of critical opinions, it is also advisable to conduct the survey anonymously. The rule is: collect as much data as necessary, but as little as possible! So if the stress level in the various departments is to be surveyed, you need to know the organizational unit of the participants. What gender someone is or how long they have been with the company is not really important for this purpose. The less personal data you request, the less someone has to worry about being identified based on their information.
The transparency factor is particularly important for getting many responses to an employee survey. Explain in the introduction or in an accompanying text who set up the respective survey, what the interest and goal behind it is, who has access to the results and what happens afterwards with the collected data: "As a department, we are organizing a summer party and would therefore like to know which drinks we should buy for you. The answers are anonymous and can only be seen by our office manager Sabine R.. Once the planning is done, the survey will be deleted." This way, everyone knows what it should be about.
If a works council exists in a company, the vast majority of employee survey topics are usually covered by the works council's right to information. This means that the works council should at least be informed in advance about the implementation, objective and purpose of the survey and can subsequently demand information about the results and access to the evaluations produced. It promises even more success to either create and conduct some surveys together with the works council, or to have the works council conduct the entire employee survey. In this way, possible doubts about anonymity or the intentions of management are reduced, and the answers are likely to be more honest. Particularly in the case of issues that are also close to the works council's heart and potentially explosive, it may be worthwhile for the HR department and management to receive only the results of the employee survey. Sometimes the works council even has the better resources to oversee recurring monthly surveys, for example.
Employee surveys can be used for a variety of purposes. Here are just a few examples:
An employee survey should focus on improving collaboration in the broadest sense, so that employees will take the time to participate. The first goal, of course, as mentioned above, is to get a more accurate picture of the thoughts and opinions of the workforce. Especially when corporate decisions in favor of employees, for example regarding benefits, are linked to investments, the measures should be as fitting as possible. It doesn't help to make a grand gesture by setting up a parent-child office if most colleagues would have preferred a job bike or a daycare allowance. Another important goal of an employee survey is to give employees a voice. Those who feel asked and are given the opportunity to express ideas and concerns identify more with their company and its decisions. In addition, an employee survey can be used to review the effectiveness of measures already underway or to determine the need for further initiatives to develop the work culture.
In order to preserve the anonymity mentioned above, most employee surveys today are conducted digitally. Depending on the topic and scope of the survey, this can be a mood barometer on the intranet or a detailed questionnaire filled out on an external platform to further encrypt the source of the responses. Ideally, the operator of such a platform is located in Germany or Europe and offers various options for designing a survey. Those who have many employees without a computer workstation should offer a mobile-optimized employee survey that can be accessed via QR code. Of course, an employee survey should not be too long or too boring so that enough people participate. It is also important here to strike the right tone.
Sociology provides a lot of important advice on which questions to ask and how to ask them. At this point, we can only go into a few aspects - the basis for an employee survey lies in questions that are easy to understand and ideally should not ask about too many topics at once. You should definitely avoid formulations that carry a strong value judgement or elicit socially desirable answers, such as "Do you also think that the working atmosphere has already improved a lot?" or "How unappetizing do you find the food in the canteen?". While striving for neutral formulations, the questions and answer options may still sound true to life in order to stimulate a spontaneous response. Instead of "Which option would you prefer?", "Which would you prefer?" has a more human, colloquial tone. Instead of asking yes/no questions, assessments can work well with a scale of 1-5 or 1-4. Free-text fields are valuable for supplementary comments, while too many open-ended questions significantly lengthen the evaluation of the employee survey. Finally, you should consider in advance exactly what you actually want to know - and then also muster the courage to ask precisely about it. What would be worse: learning uncomfortable truths as part of an employee survey - or not learning about them at all?
The worst thing is elaborate surveys that get turned into a pie chart and then disappear into a drawer or file folder. Conducting employee surveys just to take a survey wastes everyone's time. In addition, the willingness of employees to participate in such surveys decreases rapidly. After all, it's not just about being allowed to express one's opinion, people would also like to see the results afterwards. The answers should therefore not only be used to decorate the slide for the next top management meeting with figures, but should also lead to reactions. The minimum level of transparency therefore means responding promptly to the results of the employee survey at a suitable opportunity and, if necessary, commenting on them from the management's point of view. When asked about desired benefits or potential for process improvements, the responses should result in visible new offerings or work facilitation. A good way of avoiding inactivity is to draw up action plans jointly for each area under the leadership of the respective manager, for example. Six or twelve months later, a new employee survey can then be conducted to check how well the action plans have already taken effect. When creating an employee survey, you should therefore already consider how to continue working with the results.
What could be the reasons if our employee survey has too few participants?
Our experts support you in conducting and evaluating employee surveys. The results enable you to precisely identify, prioritize and target areas for action.
We help you to interpret the results of the employee survey in a meaningful way and to derive measures that meet the needs and concerns of the employees. ARTS supports you in initiating changes within the company and ensuring that the identified areas for action are successfully addressed. Together, we create a corporate culture that is based on the needs and feedback of your employees and enables continuous improvements.