How does one write employee surveys to find resistance in change management?

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Employee satisfaction surveys, a type of employee opinion survey, are used by management to identify the causes and levels of satisfaction and dissatisfaction among a company’s employees. Changes in management or in management methods generally have a profound effect on employee motivation and morale, and resistance to such changes can seriously undermine the achievement of the company’s goals. Surveys and focus groups are valuable tools in ascertaining what the issues of contention are, in order to overcome them in a manner that is consistent with both the company’s goals and employee needs.

In order to be reliable, these surveys must be formulated by professional industrial psychologists which are trained to compose questions that can extract accurate, unbiased information. They must then be properly administered in accordance with the organization’s unique corporate culture and analyzed by experienced survey researchers in order to obtain meaningful results.

As one of the significant functions of the survey process is to build a relationship of honesty and trust between management and employees, the results of the survey should be shared within the organization and acted upon effectively. Implementation of the survey results must then be monitored and communicated with the employees. Additional surveys should be conducted at regular intervals to gauge employee reaction to changes made on the basis of their input.

In order for employees to feel comfortable enough to respond truthfully, it is important to stress that their responses will be held in confidence and used for the sole purpose of improving conditions within the organization. At the same time, it is in the company’s interest to promote the sense that management is open to employee input and can be trusted to use sensitive information discreetly for the common good. Ultimately, experience is the best means of achieving this balance as employees see that their opinions have been taken seriously and acted upon.

Professional consultants should work with a select group of representative employees in order to determine the topics to be addressed in the survey. The survey questions will thus reflect the feelings experienced “on the ground” in reaction to recent management changes. Once the topics have been determined, the actual questions are developed. Questions must be carefully evaluated to ensure that they are not difficult to interpret or biased towards a certain response. Avoiding leading or unclear questions is often a highly subtle exercise, demanding the experience of a qualified professional. Professional survey firms often possess a database of proven questions that they have developed through the years by working with different organizations. Management may choose to avail itself of this knowledge, even if it does not intend to hire an external company to conduct their survey.

Specific multiple-choice questions are more effective than general “open” questions, as they are understood more consistently among the participants and enable the responses to be converted into scores that can be entered into a spreadsheet and analyzed statistically. Vague questions, on the other hand, can lead to confusion and generate subjective opinions that are more difficult to quantify and analyze. Four options should be provided in multiple-choice questions, as an odd number of options always includes a middle response equivalent to indifference or indecisiveness. It is more helpful to force the respondent to commit to some measure of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

Employees should not be allowed to self-select for participation in the survey. Reducing the randomness of the survey sample will necessarily reduce the meaningfulness of the results, as certain employee subsets will remain underrepresented. In general, self-selected participants are more likely to be a cross-section of either the least satisfied, most satisfied or the most expressive employees in the company. To achieve valid results, the company should either survey all employees in the organization or select participants using a random process.

Resource by Will

I am the editor for TheFreeResource.com, and owner of LinchpinSEO, a small business content creation company. The Free Resource has a select community of talented writers, teachers, and business people (and we are always looking for more) that bring you the most trusted resources on the web and credible articles about many topics.

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