There are just some things you shouldn’t attempt to do on your own.
No matter how 'good' you think you might be. Let’s consider this… as a business owner; would you ever do the taxes for your business? How about handle all of your legal needs?
Absolutely not! And if you’re shaking your head, 'yeah, maybe,' then perhaps a sports analogy will change your mind. Would you attempt to dunk the basketball when you have Lebron James on your team? Didn’t think so. And this is EXACTLY why you should hire someone else to do your company survey. There is an undeniable value in leveraging employee surveys to an outside party versus building and executing in-house. These include:
• Increased Participation: Employees are more likely to participate if they feel as though their leaders took the process seriously enough to hire an outside party to execute the task efficiently and correctly. And believe me; you want your employees to participate. According to Gallup, engaged employees have a 3.9 times higher earnings per share rate than employees who aren’t engaged. Keep them engaged, and give them the confidence that the survey will be done properly; especially if they were conducted poorly in the past.
• Increased Confidentiality: You can tell your people that your in-house survey is 'anonymous' all you want, but I think you’d have an easier time convincing them that they’re all getting raises. Employees are usually hesitant to be honest for fear that anonymity will be compromised. By allowing a third party to conduct your survey, confidentiality and anonymity are secured. This allows employees to open up and provide that candid feedback you crave.
• The Ability to Benchmark: Utilizing a third party offers the opportunity to understand how you stack up to other companies. Particularly in terms of employee engagement. And don’t forget, this cannot be done if the survey is built and executed in-house.
• Leverage Expertise: There are many ways that a poorly written survey questionnaire can lead to insufficient or false data. Question miswording is a common trap that those who are untrained in survey research fall into. eQ is an expert in creating surveys that are customized for our clients that incorporate best practices (in terms of survey design) and deployment.
• Make the Survey and Data Collection Matter: Many companies that do their own surveys are unsure how to leverage the data collected to create sustainable change. The best way to create this change is through a third-party system. A third party can help develop post-survey communication, ensure the survey was meaningful, and build an action plan to create organizational change around the areas that need attention.
Perhaps now that you’ve familiarized yourself with the many positives of third party surveys you’ll consider one next time you contemplate dusting off the old, antiquated survey you’ve been Xeroxing and reusing for years. Trust me; these surveys are ghosts of the past. They’re floppy disks in a flash drive world.
If you’re tired of the status quo, if you’re done distributing in-house surveys with poor feedback, it’s time to take a step forward and experience real results when someone else does your survey.