Pulse surveys, engagement surveys, 360 surveys, attitude surveys, organizational assessment surveys, safety surveys, entry and exit surveys – the possibilities are endless. And online survey tools make it easy. At a recent HR chapter meeting, a question was raised about survey saturation. When does asking for employee input become one survey too many?
It really depends on the type of survey your organization wants to run and the reasons for doing so.
The Board and senior management of the Heart and Stroke Foundation, for example, started out thinking a full employee engagement survey every year was a great idea. As their survey partner, TalentMap recommended they pause on that and consider a pulse survey instead.
“It was an excellent recommendation,” says Sue Ward, Human Resources Manager for the Foundation. “We weren’t quite at the point where we were doing enough actions around survey results. Employees were going to say, ‘what are you doing with our feedback?’ The pulse survey took a quick look at whether employees recognized what we were doing, which gave us further guidance about what we needed to do next. We appreciated that recommendation. It worked out really, really well.”
There’s no arguing that the number one secret to avoid survey saturation is to pace the number of surveys you conduct with your organization’s ability to act on findings. Without demonstrable actions, employees are less likely to fill out a second or third or fourth survey. And when response rates drop, so does the quality of your data.
When significant numbers of employees opt not to respond to a survey it’s possible they share common viewpoints that aren’t being voiced. What you end up getting is unrepresentative feedback from a skewed sample, some of whom may be overly optimistic and others disgruntled pessimists
Employee survey fatigue sets in, and response rates fall for lots of other good reasons.
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