ESAT Survey Process Links

1. Determining the Need to Survey 2. Selling the Survey to Management 3. Determining What to Ask 4. Selecting the Methodology 5. When to Require Questions 6. Proofing and Testing 7. Marketing the Survey 8. Inviting the Employees 9. Obtaining a High Response Rate 10. Selecting the Norms to Use 11. Interpreting the Results 12. Sharing the Results 13. Acting on the Results 14. When to Repeat the Survey

Your employee satisfaction survey should be treated as seriously as would any of your products or services. It must be of high quality, and it must be marketed correctly. This tip discusses the marketing aspect of the process.

As in every marketing campaign, several things are necessary. Among these are:

• Determining the target audience,
• Creating awareness of the product or service,
• Communicating the benefits of the product or service,
• Letting people know how to obtain the product or service.

Before you even begin, you will need to have appointed someone to manage the communication process. This often is the project manager for the entire program, but it can be a different individual.

Determining the Target Audience

There really are two target audiences for your Employee Satisfaction Survey Marketing Campaign.

• Employees,
• Managers of employees.

The reason for employees being a target is self-evident. Managers also are a necessary target -- their support is essential in the communication and facilitation of the employee satisfaction survey program. A manager can make or break response rate in his/her area.

Creating Awareness

Two to three weeks before the survey invitation goes out, you should begin creating awareness of it.

Step 1. Communicate to Senior Managers the importance of participation, the confidential nature of the survey, and that it is a priority for the top manager(s) of the company.

Step 2. Senior managers communicate to the remaining managers in the organization.

Step 3. Begin disseminating information about the survey to employees via the most effective means available. The method you use should depend upon how you communicate important matters to the entire employee base. Multiple methods should be used if possible. Consider email, memorandums, newsletters and bulletin boards. Draft and disseminate a Q & A sheet to all managers for use in employee meetings.

All managers should schedule meetings with the employees immediately reporting to them to discuss the survey process.

Communicating the Benefits of the Employee Satisfaction Survey

In all pre-survey communications, including meetings with employees, the following should be addressed.

• The importance of responding. "We can't fix things if you don't tell us what is broken."
• The confidentiality and anonymity of the process and the data.
• How the results will be disseminated to employees.
• How the information will be used.

Letting People Know How to Obtain the Product (the Survey)

In all pre-survey communications, the timeline for participating needs to be communicated. People need to be told that they can complete the survey during work hours. (Managers need to understand that their support is needed in letting people complete the survey during work hours.)

The actual invitation, which can be in email, letter, or memorandum form, should reiterate all of the items in these last two sections, as well as outlining the start and end dates of the survey. The invitation should come from a person high in management, the CEO or person in charge of the local operation, if possible. Details of the invitation are included Inviting the Employees.