You Gotta Let Them Know – Part Three

Within the last few blogs, we’ve looked at how critical it is to effectively communicate your employee survey in order to achieve high response rates.

But what is also vital is the communication of the results, and proposed actions by the organisation based on those results, to its workforce.

Immediately after the survey, thank employees for their time and openness and honesty and if your response rate was high, or you reached any specific response rate goals, acknowledge these too.

Whether or not your survey results are generally good or bad, keep the tone of any communication positive or at least neutral.

Be honest, an organisation must be keen to share both its strengths and its areas in need of improvement. Employees will see through attempts to hide or skew information.

The sooner results are released, the sooner the organisation can start to take steps towards positive change.

Share appropriate information at each and every level. All levels of management will need summarised results and access to detailed results for the organisation in order to ascertain differences between divisions/ departments and teams.

Communicate clearly and concisely what happens next. After the results have been presented, let everyone in the organisation know what steps will be taken to improve those items and areas in need of improvement.

If the results of the survey are mainly negative, you may want to acknowledge that “there is a lot of work to be done”, but emphasise that the organisation is keen to tackle the issues and enthusiastic about the positive changes that will be forthcoming.

Also, don’t rush to share results before you are ready, but be timely as well. Keep the process moving forward while it is still fresh in employees’ minds. A few weeks or so is fine. A few months or more is too long.

And finally, don’t stop there……. launch a pattern of regular communication about the organisations commitment to employee engagement, morale and satisfaction. Share progress toward goals and milestones reached. Employees can’t be expected to automatically know about everything that is being done or to simply note the changes that are being made. Continue to celebrate successes and acknowledge when efforts fall short.

Continuing to communicate results and action planning progress can also help drive accountability. When employees are reminded of promises and commitments that were made and goals that were set, those that are responsible for delivering on those promises are more likely to follow through. This simple pressure can be a useful technique to impose on yourself and others.

If you would like more about conducting effective post employee survey communication, then contact us on +44 (0) 1255 850051.