Institute of Internal Communication

Employers should beware the pitfalls of surveys that rely heavily on agree/disagree scales when analysing employee engagement.

That was the message from Peter Hutton, BrandEnergy Research MD and former deputy MD at MORI, at a CiB conference master class.

Many surveys are based almost entirely on lists of agree/disagree statements. This format makes it easier to ask questions on a lot of issues and is simple for respondents to fill in.

However, problematic consequences include: some critical questions will inevitably not fit into this format; respondents cannot indicate which questions are most important to them; the format does not enable you to explain what lies behind employees’ answers. For example, while an answer may reveal that an employee does not feel that their line manager does a good job of managing them, the issues that explain why are not revealed.

The fact that these surveys are easy for employees to fill in also has some downsides. In many ways, it is better if staff have to think more as this means they will consider individual questions more carefully and cannot go into automatic mode.

In addition, by only measuring attitudes, such surveys fail to consider knowledge, behaviour, and motivation which are all highly relevant to employee engagement levels.

Hutton highlighted the value of bespoke surveys whose starting point is the individual organisation's business model and the desired knowledge, behaviour and attitudes of staff rather than a standardised questionnaire.

This flies in the face of the current trend for consultancies to use a standardised employee engagement questionnaire with all its clients. He put the rise of such surveys down to a number of factors, including the pressure on consultancies to keep costs down and to create opportunities for follow-up work that assists clients in interpreting and acting on the findings. One of the rationales is that there are significant advantages in comparing an organisation to industry 'norms', a view that Hutton questions.

He believes that a good survey will contain a variety of different types of questions, and will cover the following areas:

• Satisfiers and motivators

• Staff views on how to make the organisation better

• How well internal systems/policies are working

• Awareness of the organisation 'feel' and culture

Including an employee advocacy question, that is how willing they are to be an ambassador for their employer, its products and services, also gives a very clear indication of whether things are going right at the organisation.

In conclusion, Peter said:

• Be clear why you want to undertake an employee survey

• Be clear about the kind of organisation you want to create and how and what you would like your staff to engage with.

• Be wary of “off the shelf” standardised surveys.

• Work with a researcher who a) understands research, especially questionnaire design, b) understands how organisations and management work, and c) engages with what your organisation is about.

He added:

• Avoid having more than 10pc of your survey made up of agree/disagree statements.

• Include a few normative questions, but preferably not agree/disagree attitude statements

Ensure questions are included that:

• enable you to understand what is behind responses to key questions

• allow staff to convey what they want from the organisation

• Enable staff to define the issues you need to address and point to solutions