EXCELLENCE IN PRACTICE

As organisations grow they reach a stage where it becomes dangerous to continue to rely on the views
of senior managers for an understanding of people’s motivation and satisfaction with their organisation.
It also becomes useful to survey people’s opinions about improvement opportunities, to ensure their
wealth of knowledge about the performance of their organisation is harnessed.

To get the most out of a survey there
are four important areas to consider:

Survey design

Survey administration

Survey analysis and communication

Survey action planning

Questions need to reflect what is important to staff across a broad range of factors that reflect their satisfaction and motivation e.g. facilities and services, equipment, health and safety, terms and conditions, corporate social responsibility, career development and training, equal opportunities, communication, involvement, customer focus, leadership and direction. In large organisations appropriate segmentations need to be built into the design, to allow more meaningful analysis and action planning by division, location and employee groups.

Administration of the survey needs to be smooth, and analysis must be made against an understanding of statistical significance. Communication of the results must focus on the key issues, to ensure an aligned focus on the real priorities.

Finally, there needs to be a well thought out approach to planning and delivering improvement activity - the feedback only becomes valuable once it has been responded to!

Excellence in Practice offers practical solutions drawn from extensive experience to support organisations wishing to develop staff surveys, or review and improve existing approaches.