As an HR professional or a people leader, you must have used employee surveys to understand your organization, culture and to make decisions about your strategy, processes and policies.
As a former corporate HR and Learning professional myself, I invested a lot of time designing and analyzing employee surveys. At the same time, it was very clear that the results are not a complete, true and accurate representation of the reality on ground.
It’s only later in my career that I started doing secondary focus groups and interviewing. This additional step open the flood gates to the next level of employee insights that surveys could never bring.
If you are stuck with limited employee survey data insights and want to get closer to the truth of your employee experience, it’s worth taking this next step:
Create an active ongoing dialogue with employees at all levels.
Here are my 5 tips to get the most out of your employee surveys through dialogue:
- Timing: The time right after survey results are published is the best to engage people in focus groups and 1:1 interviewing. It established how serious you are about the quantity as well as the quality of your data.
- Representation: Once you have identified key areas of exploration from your survey, make sure get additional data from a good representative sample within the organizations. Consider age, level, tenure, experience, expertise, Business functions, roles etc.
- Options: Provide multiple options for employees to join. Consider 1:1 as well as focus groups, virtual vs in-person, short vs long discussions etc.
- Questions: Ask questions that encourage response and participation. E.g, if your survey informs you about the poor quality of manager employee 1:1s , ask lateral questions that elicit responses around safety, expectations from 1:1s and ideal 1:1 experience.
- Neutrality: Facilitating this dialogue successfully is hinged on your ability to stay neutral and elicit deeper insights. Avoid over focussing on a certain data point or piece of information no matter how important it seems. Your job as a facilitator of dialogue is not to seek confirmation but to seek information. It can come in any language or form.
If you any kind of survey data, it’s a lost opportunity if you don’t go a step further to get true employee insights.
Not sure how or where to start? Click on the link below of book a call with me: https://third-loop-learning.moxieapp.com/public/third-loop-learning/consultation-call-with-bhatki-karkare
If you want to advance your dialogue skills, click on the link below to learn about my Masterclass:
Dialogue Mastery: The Facilitation Skills Masterclass Series
Have Dialoguing!
