Is there such a thing as asking your employees enough questions? In short, yes. They can develop survey fatigue which causes them to avoid answering surveys because they feel like they’re being asked their opinion too often. So how so you know if you’re asking your employees too many questions, not enough questions, or more importantly, you’re not asking them the right questions?
You’re only asking for feedback when they participate in their yearly reviews
If you are having your managers and employees perform yearly reviews of each other, that’s a step in the right direction. Encouraging dialogue between your employees about their performance and working conditions seems basic, but can be essential to many of your company’s human resources functions. Not only does this help your organization uncover problems before they become full blown issues, but it gives your managers and employees a formal process to discuss what resources they need to do their jobs better and a template to air grievances in a safer way. Inc.com also explains that without performance reviews, employees might never find out that they’re doing something wrong, and won’t have the opportunity to grow, which can lead to turnover and contribute to a growing sense of negativity among employees. Bottom line, even though performance reviews take time and create a lot of paperwork, their benefit outweighs the administrative hassles.
You’re asking for feedback at the end of each calendar year
Hopefully each year your organization is launching new initiatives and programs, and you have a dedicated week at the end of the year when you’re asking your employees how they felt about your organization’s new pursuits. Not unlike performance reviews, this kind of feedback gathering can tell you how your company could improve communication about new features and benefits, or give you insight into what kinds of communication work better with your employees. Lastly, you’ll likely gain ideas on what your company can be working on in the year ahead.
You ask for feedback from exiting employees
Not all companies have exit interviews penciled in as part of the process for handling departing employees. If exit interviews are not a part of your process, you should consider adding them as soon as possible. Why? It’s another touchpoint for you to learn what about culture, benefits, company communication or career progression could be missing. It’s a logical way to get data about what’s happening inside your organization. Even though exiting employees don’t have anything to lose by griping about their experience, they’re likely to want to leave on a good note, and their exit interview is unlikely to turn into a vent session. Of course you’ll have departing employees that will say very little in an exit interview, but if you give your managers a case study or two with best practices outlining how to handle an exit interview, a few well crafted questions can get good data from even the most introspective individuals.
You find yourself in the “over surveying” category
How do you know you if your company is doing too many employee surveys? One example is that the first employee survey you send in the year gets a seventy percent participation rate, but survey two drops to fifty percent. You cautiously send survey number three, and that one comes in with a thirty percent completion rate. If your participation rates steadily decline with each survey sent, it’s likely time to look at the frequency and topics of your surveys. Consider adding the aforementioned “natural” ways to get feedback from your employees, instead of the quarterly survey you might be sending.
There is no magic formula for determining how often or the topic of what you should be asking your employees about because every organization is different. Make no mistake, you need to be getting data from your employees to understand if they’re happy, what they would like to see changed, and then you need to thank them for giving you the data. Lastly, you then need to show them that you’ve listened to what they’ve said and communicate your plan for how you’re going to make changes. It doesn’t need to be a huge change, but there needs to be an acknowledgement that based on their thoughts, your company will be changing up the way it handles some of the things that received the most complaints. The worst thing you can do is have your employees give their opinions and not do anything with them.