In the year 2024, if you’re not doing some sort of assessments and/or surveys at least once a year to measure things like engagement, experience and more, you’re making a big mistake.

At a baseline, you need to be measuring your employee experience/engagement no less than once a year. Think about if you ran your business for over a year, and never sought out customer feedback? You need to focus a significant amount of energy on your internal diagnostics, just like you would with the people you serve or support.

There are countless platforms, systems, methods, designs, and analytic models that claim to be the best, most relevant, most accurate, or most in-depth. This article is not going to be about what makes an effective survey, or what platforms we recommend…that will come later. This article is going to focus primarily on what you should actually do with your surveys, once you have the data in hand.

The reality is that most surveys these days do a pretty good job of getting you foundational data and insights. Where people get hung up is knowing how to deploy them well, and knowing what to do with the data, after you get the survey back.

Quick note – this is not me saying that “just slap a few questions in a Google form, any survey will do…” There ARE good surveys and bad surveys. What I AM SAYING is that most reputable brands, organizations, or folks who have been coaching for a while like us, have a grasp on survey design, and they generally do a good job. If you’re looking for a more in-depth reading on surveys, check back in next month, or better yet, subscribe to our newsletter so you can get updates.

If you’re using a reputable or quality survey provider or working with an organization who has a background in OD/Engagement/Training, chances are your survey quality and design are just fine. If you’re looking for a few recommendations, we can certainly provide those, so drop us a line.

However, this article isn’t about the survey you’re using, this is about what re-using, this is about what YOU should be doing, once you get the results back.)

This is our first critical lesson, you should be putting more time, energy, resources, and effort into what you are going to do with and because of your survey, than the actual survey.

I see organizations get this backwards more often than I would like.

So, let’s talk about it…

1. Diagnose and Analyze:

Obviously, there’s some analysis that’s going to be done for you, and if you’re doing it yourself internally, there’s a couple of quick things to keep in mind.

• Patterns: look for patterns in the data, do trends emerge, are there sentiments that are more frequent than others, do the data point to any specific opportunities, events, or insights that can give context to the result?
• Segmentation: work on using different segments to better understand some of the subtleties in the data. For example, you may have made some really significant leadership changes five years ago, and now you are seeing increasingly disparate results from your 10+ year employees, and those hired within the last 4 years. Segmenting by department and tenure could give you some additional insight into the factors at play.

If you’re working on a thorough sub or meta-analysis, and you’re using pattern thinking to analyze and interpret your data, you are already off to a great start.

However, I want you to understand a couple of key nuances. One of the primary ones being, remember you’re curing the sickness not treating the symptoms. Too often I see leaders and leadership teams (boards included) fixated on one or two data points, or one or two events/incidents rather than pursuing the larger root cause.

In the same way that when you experience passive aggressive behavior from a team member, we teach to dig into the root cause of why. Or when someone is repeatedly late, I seek out the sickness or root cause.

What this means is that you’re going to have to dig deeper than your initial analysis. We’re going to have to have some huddles, group meetings, 1:1’s, candid conversations, and even get vulnerable and humble, and ask team members directly for clarity and specific insight into certain opportunities that may come up.

At the end of the day, the data simply points to places we should examine further. You’re going to have to roll up your sleeves and get in touch with your people. We’re going to have to have some heart to hearts to figure things out, really understand what each other want and need, and generate a plan to move forward! (This is not just the case when you’re working through survey results that indicate poor engagement or experience, this is just as important when you get back really positive results too!)

2. Communicate Findings and Your Process

• Wants and Whys: trying to keep your employees happy means you ask what they want and need, you try to give them what they want, and if you can’t you tell them why. It’s easy for employees on the front-line to assume that when they don’t hear from leadership, it’s because they’re withholding information. This doesn’t set you up for success in any way.
  • • We believe in being as transparent as possible, whenever possible. Now, depending on your organization, and the m.o. in the past, you may not have a history of doing so. Start now. You should want to disclose to the organization what you found, good, bad, and ugly. Now obviously, you need to do this with some timing, tact, and delivery, however – the worst thing you can do or say, is nothing at all!
    • We also believe in dialogue, people need to understand they have agency, and a voice, and they should use them. In order to create dialogue, you need to sit down and intentionally consider the timing, the environment, the actual delivery method, and then remember that people are only accessible and open when they feel safe. Creating an open environment of safety may be something that takes you some time, but you’ll never quite reach full and open dialogue without that. (More to come on safety in another post…)
    • Assume Responsibility – this is a subtle one, but it’s important…
      • If you’re the leader, it’s on you. Again, if you’re the leader, it’s on you. At Think 3D, we believe that leaders own the net result.  As the leader, you are responsible for the outcome, which means there’s no longer any benefit or merit in the blame game. It’s important to note that when communicating findings, telling people what’s going to change, or why, that you own the net result.

3. Develop an Actual Action Plan (And Share It)

People need to know what it is you intend to do, and how they need to be involved, or what you expect of them along the way.

One thing to keep in mind is that you can, and should, express clear expectations of what you need your employees to do to support your efforts in navigating the changes necessary to move the needle the way you want.

I would include things that you’re doing, so they understand what efforts and things they can expect of you or your team, just like you would ask of them.

Begin a pro-active communication plan. Go to where your people are at, find creative ways to get in front of them, and share your findings. Emphasize gratitude because even when you’re not pleased with the results as a leader, or you feel frustrated, remember that you asked them to share their thoughts and feelings with you, and they delivered. They took the time and effort to share, that’s important. Another solid approach is to be proactive with your continued follow-up and updates. Let people know when they can expect to hear from you, and how often.

Celebrate WINS as you share results and your action plan. You should have multiple goals: process goals, performance goals, and outcome goals.

Process Goals – this is a standard or metric you set as part of what you’ll do on a consistent basis in order to achieve your desired outcome. Sometimes considered “activity goals”, an example of this would be something that you commit to doing with a certain frequency. “We’re going to book-end our week as a team, and huddle for 30 minutes on Monday and Friday.”

Performance Goals – these are the standards we’re going to want to achieve throughout our activity goals. A performance goal looks like incremental improvements or growth in whatever area you’re focusing on.

Outcome Goals – this is the end result. Your survey next year. Your retention rate. Your bottom line, or top-line for that matter.

This story isn’t over yet. We have some strong thoughts and feels about surveys and how to get the most of out them. Keep an eye out for part 2…you won’t regret it. We’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this first section, however, so sound off on social about what you think, and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter for more riveting Think 3D content.