Workplace survey. Improve the satisfaction of your teams

The workplace survey is undoubtedly a key tool for companies wishing to improve employee satisfaction and increase the performance of their teams. Measuring the quality of the work environment provides many benefits, from retaining talent to optimising team performance. Creating a workplace survey is not difficult. Here’s what you need to know to do it successfully.

What is a workplace survey?

A workplace survey is a survey that measures employee satisfaction and perceptions of their work. They are used to gather information about how employees feel about their jobs, their colleagues, the organisational culture and other aspects that impact their satisfaction. While HR departments lead these surveys, the active involvement of management and other leaders throughout the company is crucial to ensure that the results are fully understood and that actions are taken to improve satisfaction.

What is a workplace survey for?

Conducting a job survey brings multiple benefits to organisations:

• Understanding team perceptions. Workplace surveys measure the level of employee engagement and give employees the opportunity to express their opinions, creating an open dialogue and a culture of transparency and trust.
• Identify opportunities for improvement. By comparing results across different groups of employees, you can identify areas for improvement and make decisions on how to improve.
• Manage change. Conducting a labour survey after implementing significant changes for the organisation allows you to measure their impact on the motivation and commitment of the teams.
• Promote an inclusive culture. Workplace surveys reflect a culture that values employee opinions.
• Anticipate potential impacts. Gathering feedback on new initiatives helps identify and mitigate potential risks.
• Encourage internal innovation. Employee surveys can also be used to gather ideas that help the organisation move forward.
• Attract and retain talent. Identifying the leaders who are most influential in motivating their teams, those who help improve the day-to-day work environment, increases employee satisfaction and helps attract new talent.
• Check progress. Conducting regular job surveys allows you to assess the evolution of employee satisfaction. In this way, it is possible to understand the degree of effectiveness of the measures taken.

When to conduct a workplace survey?

Workplace surveys are particularly useful during organisational changes, such as expansions, mergers or leadership changes. It is also advisable to conduct them periodically to assess the evolution of the work environment. This continuity allows you to compare information at different points in time and to verify the effectiveness of the actions implemented.

How is a workplace survey conducted?

If you are already convinced of the benefits of a workplace survey and want to create your own, here is a detailed guide to ensure that you do it effectively and that your results are useful and actionable:

• Define the purpose of the job survey. Before creating the survey, the first thing to do is to decide what you want to create it for: What are you going to do with the data? What questions do you want to answer? What do you want to do when you have the answers? The clearer the business objectives are, what we want to achieve with the labour survey, the easier it will be to create the perfect survey to meet these needs. It is highly recommended to make a list with all the ideas, so that you can refer to it whenever you have doubts about specific points.
• Design the questionnaire. Now that you are clear about your objectives, you have to design the questionnaire. You should include as many questions as necessary to cover the objectives of your survey. We recommend you take a look at our post on how to create a questionnaire, which includes tips on how to create effective questionnaires. Keep in mind that the questionnaire should include some open-ended questions. This will allow you to collect more detailed information to help you understand the quantitative data. In addition, you will be able to collect verbatims that illustrate and help you to better convey your findings.
• Choose a tool. You should have software that allows you to send the questionnaire to every single employee. The more people who will respond and the longer the questionnaire, the more important it is that you rely on a specialised survey management application. This will make it easier to send out the survey, the quality controls will allow you to collect the right information and you will have tables and graphs to access the results as soon as the survey is closed. And that includes the analysis of open-ended questions, which until recently required a lot of manual work and which today can be analysed quickly and effortlessly thanks to the help of artificial intelligence. And, if you wish, We are testers has a team of research experts who can take care of everything for you.
• Communicate the survey to employees. To ensure high participation, you should explain the purpose of the survey and how the results will be used. Employees will respond more honestly if the survey is to be anonymous, so be sure to make confidentiality clear in your communication. Communicating the importance of the survey just once will most likely not be enough. Be prepared to send reminders to encourage participation.
• Analyse the results. Once you have collected the responses, retrieve your list of job survey objectives and extract the data that answer the questions on your list. If there are significant differences between departments or groups, analyse the causes. When you have all the answers, share the findings with management and team leaders and have your recommendations ready to improve employee satisfaction and motivation.
• Implement improvements. A job survey only makes sense if actions are taken based on the results. Define with management an action plan with concrete measures. Involve the highest level of the company in communication. Be transparent about things that have been rated positively, but also about opportunities for improvement.
  Repeat the job survey. Once the measures have been implemented and enough time has passed for the results to become visible, repeat the job survey, evaluate the progress that has been made with the measures taken and identify new opportunities for improvement.

Create your workplace surveys the easy way

A workplace survey is an essential initiative to strengthen organisational culture and improve company performance.

With the We are testers research platform, you can easily organise a workplace survey with your employees. With our systems, the confidentiality of your data is always assured. In addition, We are testers’ team of research experts will help you create your questionnaire and monitor your fieldwork.

Want to know more about how we can help you with your job survey? Get in touch with us.