Team Surveys

 

A highly-engaged workforce increases profitability by 21%, and conducting team surveys can help accomplish this.

Imagine your business as a bucket – a profit bucket. 

At first glance, it may appear sturdy, but small cracks may be present, even if you can’t see them. If these small cracks go unnoticed, they’ll become significant leaks as time goes on. The good news is, surveys are a tool that can help you ‘find the cracks’ in your business before they become leaks!

Surveys are an essential strategy for building a successful company. Because surveys help you peek behind the curtain, you’ll be able to obtain insight and honest feedback from your team to improve your company.

By conducting surveys, you can identify potential issues or concerns that may be impacting your team’s productivity and engagement – these issues that may be missed otherwise (just like the small cracks in your bucket), as employees don’t often walk into a room and tell their leader how they feel.

At Castle HR, we not only help our clients implement surveys, but we use them ourselves. We’ll guide you through what surveys are, why you and your team will love them, and important considerations to remember when conducting surveys in your organization.

So if you’re ready to empower your team and take your business to the next level, let’s dive in and unleash the power of surveys together!

What are surveys?

A survey involves gathering, assessing, and deciphering information from your team to understand how to retain, motivate and engage them.

Imagine if everybody on your team shared with you exactly what they were thinking…how much easier would that make your life as a business leader? How would things improve for you and your team? Surveys can help you gain valuable insight and make improvements at your company. Here are some key things to know about surveys:

Anonymous feedback

A study by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 72% of employees were more likely to provide honest feedback when surveys were anonymous.

That is why many of today’s surveys are often conducted anonymously! Anonymity eliminates the awkwardness of answering questions honestly face-to-face – you will reap the benefits of anonymous surveys, and your team will also appreciate this opportunity.

Tools

Surveys can be conducted in various formats but are commonly done online. A great, widely used tool to conduct surveys is SurveyMonkey. This platform provides a free, user-friendly experience and makes for an easy administering and data-collecting process.

Questions

Surveys collect data by asking individuals a series of questions. These questions can include open-ended and/or close-ended questions. At Castle HR, we use a standard set of proven questions for our quarterly surveys, but we also encourage separate surveys for specific initiatives (i.e., gatherings ideas for a holiday party).

Data

The survey results can then be analyzed to identify areas of strength and areas for improvement. For example, if the survey results indicate that your employees are not satisfied with their opportunities for growth and development, they’ll be more likely to leave.

However, learning this information would be an excellent opportunity for you to conduct Modern Performance Reviews and strategize how to keep your employees happy by encouraging their development. The information you collect can also be compared to peer data to help you spot trends and better understand the direction you’re headed in.

You can improve employee engagement and satisfaction by taking action on the survey results. This can lead to increased productivity, retention, and overall organizational performance.

Why will you love surveys?

According to a survey conducted by Gallup, employees who feel that their opinions are heard and valued are more engaged and less likely to leave their job. High-engagement companies see 41% lower absenteeism and 24% lower turnover rates than those with low engagement.

Attracting and retaining top talent is the key to building a successful business. To do that, you must ensure your team is engaged, productive, and happy, and one of the best ways to do this with today’s workforce is to ask them what they need and how they feel!

Allow us to break down why you will love surveys:

1. Gather honest feedback – as we mentioned early, your team is more likely to be honest when they’re allowed to provide feedback anonymously.
2. Spot trends – using historical and peer data, you can spot trends, see where you’re going,  and find the cracks in your bucket.
3. Plug holes quickly – fix those leaks! Identify and address potential concerns early on before they become expensive fixes.

Surveys can reveal your team’s honest opinions and help you make better data-based decisions at your company. You may be able to uncover issues preventing them from doing their best work, and you can take their insight into account when deciding how to address such problems.

From there, you can work to continually improve and create a workplace that’s more conducive to productivity and employee engagement.

Why will your team love surveys?

A study by Forbes reveals that employees who feel their voice is heard are 4.6 times more likely to perform their best work.

This is because when you regularly solicit input from your team, you show them that you value their opinions and are committed to their success – which is something that today’s workforce values. Here are a few reasons why your team will love surveys:

1. Anonymity –when employees can provide anonymous feedback, overall satisfaction with the company increases by 42% (HBR).
2. Feel heard – they will feel engaged as leadership addresses their feedback.
3. Feel valued – they will know their input can impact the company’s direction!
4. Winning culture – contributing to the company’s growth will boost morale, and they’ll feel like a valued member of your team.

Essentially, surveys can achieve what a direct conversation sometimes can’t – people are more transparent and open when submitting anonymous feedback – and being given the opportunity to do so will only promote a healthy and winning culture for your team.

What else do you need to know about surveys?

Surveys are a user-friendly tool that can quickly help business owners gather data to make better decisions and understand their team’s needs.

There are various ways to run surveys and several different types of surveys that can be designed to be unique to your company and your specific purpose for conducting one.

We want to answer a few other common questions before we wrap up:

How often should you conduct surveys?

Surveys should be conducted regularly enough to gather valuable data, but not so frequently that they burden your team.

At Castle HR, we suggest surveys be conducted at least every 6 months; we do ours quarterly.

How should survey data be analyzed and acted upon?

Surveys data should be analyzed promptly to catch issues before they escalate.

Once your team has completed their surveys, you should thank them for their input.

From there, action plans should be created to address any issues quickly and improve the overall workplace experience for your team. It is essential to review survey data over time to see how you have improved, or spot dips right away. With Castle HR, you also get access to peer data to see where benchmarks are.

What types of questions should be included in surveys?

Surveys typically include a mix of quantitative and qualitative questions, focusing on job satisfaction, benefits, work environment, and opportunities for growth and development.

How can surveys be used to improve employee engagement?

Surveys can improve employee engagement by creating a culture of feedback and empowerment.

Regularly soliciting input from your team and addressing their suggestions can create a more conducive workplace to productivity and success.

How can surveys be used to attract and retain top talent?

Surveys can attract and retain top talent by creating a workplace conducive to productivity and success.

Showing your team that you value their input and are committed to their success will make you more likely to attract and retain the best candidates for open positions.

What should you avoid doing when conducting surveys?

You should avoid asking too many open-ended or complex questions or conducting surveys without a clear objective. You should also avoid asking questions that may influence the response or skew the data. Finally, do not ignore the feedback – if you’re asking for it, you should have a plan to act on it!

How does Castle HR help with surveys?

With Castle HR, you gain the added benefit of having a third party administer an anonymous survey – imagine the honest results we get!

With years of experience working with startups and business leaders on their HR strategy, we can confirm that surveys are a massive tool to help your success. We time our quarterly surveys right before our Modern Performance Reviews so we can have a deep and impactful conversation each quarter – stacking the impact of two strategies means we see productivity, retention and focus all remain at high levels.

We can attest to the impact surveys can have and help you understand how surveys can help you improve as you scale!