At eQ, we begin most of our engagements with a study. Part of our study includes a Voice of the Employee Survey. The purpose of this is to better understand the business we will be working in; from the perspective of all involved, not just the leadership.
Why would the perspective of the receptionist be as important as the perspective of the CEO? The CEO knows his/her own company right? Sometimes. And sometimes, not so much.
Generally speaking, a leadership team approaches entreQuest because there is a concern, or just because they want to do things better than they are right now. More often than not, though, they are surprised at the answers from their team. They are surprised at how deep the issues go. They are surprised at how deeply their employees feel about aspects of their company and sometimes even about the leadership of the company.
So, how do we get employees to open up about issues or concerns that they have, perhaps, been too uncomfortable (or scared) to voice? For starters, the Voice of the Employee Survey is anonymous. We ask really good questions (that have gone through many iterations), both objective and subjective, that allow the employee to think about a topic and respond according to how they feel.
Why is this important? In order to get true answers, employees have to feel safe. They have to feel that this is the chance for their voice to be heard without any threat or concern of blow-back. Once they feel secure, they open up.
But, there’s a second part to this that some leadership teams have failed to comprehend. It isn’t just giving the employee an opportunity to voice his/her opinion, but it is doing something with that opinion once you’ve gotten it.
Hearing the words mean nothing when you don’t acknowledge that you’ve heard them and when you don’t take action as a result of hearing them.
There are two easy steps we recommend all our clients take after a Voice of the Employee Survey:
Step One: Thank the team for their opinions. Be sincere in your thanks and appreciate that this was probably difficult, but that the purpose is to take this information and make the company better.
Step Two: Do something with the information - create an action plan (the roadmap or blueprint) and share that action plan with the team.
Don’t think I’m saying you have to take every suggestion or comment from the team and make a change. You don’t. You just have to take it into consideration and acknowledge that it was said. You have to be honest about what changes you are going to make, what changes might have to wait, and what changes are never going to happen.
This is where entreQuest can be particularly valuable - we’re great at helping you dig through the responses, making sense of it all, and at making an action plan for moving forward. But, even if you decide to take the results and do something on your own, I caution you about not doing anything at all. Not doing anything at all means that trust within the company will tank. Employees will feel like they aren’t valued for their opinions. They will feel that the Voice of the Employee Survey was an exercise in futility as opposed to an exercise designed to improve the overall running of the company. Things will be worse than they were when you engaged in the process to begin with - or at the very least, they won’t be better.
So, take the Voice of the Employee Survey for what it is: a tool. It is a tool that helps you understand the perspective of your staff. It is a way to get ideas about how to do things that you have perhaps never thought of before. It is a way to make employees feel valued, a way to build trust within the company, and it is a way to move forward toward success. Know that one anonymous survey has the potential to change your company from the inside out. Know that you have people that can help you with that change - on the outside, and on the inside. And take heart, this is the first step in making future steps with an invested team. A Voice of the Employee Survey increases employee investment and engagement in all processes moving forward… As long as you move forward.
