Not Another Survey! Survey Fatigue and How to Avoid It
The use of surveys in the workplace have been growing in popularity over the years – which is great! We love the interest companies are taking in supporting their employees and letting their voices be heard. There is a catch, however. Surveys can be a great way of gaining information, but they can also consume a lot of time and often do not result in a lot of visible payoff to the employees compared to the amount of time they invested. Below are 4 tips for how to improve your surveys to avoid survey fatigue and to keep getting responses.
Following these four tips will help you maintain higher response rates on your surveys and get the information that you need to take action.
Limit the length. A 10-minute survey here or there does not place much of a constraint on anyone’s day. When surveys start to take 30-60 minutes to complete, however, they become much harder to fit between meetings and other obligations. Occasionally a longer survey may be necessary, so in these cases it is important to clearly communicate the purpose of the survey to gain employee buy-in to its importance and to have a plan for what and when information will be communicated back to them. If an employee is making a larger time commitment to a survey, they want to see something as a result that makes them feel like the time commitment was worth it.
Limit the number of surveys. To do this, it is important to take a moment to ask yourself if a survey is truly the best method for gathering the information you’re trying to obtain, or if there is another avenue that would be just as effective or maybe even more effective. For example, if you find you are asking a lot of open-ended questions, it may be better to consider conducting a few focus groups to gain the information you’re looking for and to allow for more of an interactive conversation. Often times, surveys can be limiting for asking open-ended questions because there isn’t the opportunity to ask follow-up clarifying questions to their responses. Organizations should try to work together to spread out the surveys to ensure employees aren’t bombarded with multiple surveys at once, or one right after another. By planning ahead, various departments can still get the information they need without overwhelming the staff with too many surveys at a time.
Take quick action. This is important if you want your employees to keep participating in surveys, especially if the surveys are repeated annually. If employees learn that nothing is being done with the information they provide, they will stop participating. The last thing you want to do is conduct a survey and then sit on the findings for a while. It’s best to make sure that you are prepared to take action on survey results soon after they come in. We recommend that you create a plan ahead of time that outlines how you’re going to handle the results and then establish a timeline for accomplishing it. By doing so, you’re better able to get the results and the plan of action back to staff in a timely manner. With a plan in place, you can even let employees know ahead of time when they should plan on hearing back. Try using the format, “this is what we heard, this is what we’re going to do” so that employees can quickly see that the actions you are taking are the direct result of their feedback.
Communicate the goal and outcome. As mentioned in number 1, employees are much more likely to buy-in to a survey and want to fill it out if they know the end goal they’re helping you achieve is. This is important for all surveys, not just the long ones. What is it that you’re trying to better understand? How will this information help the organization improve? Be sure to add this information to your initial communication about the survey and to the introduction of the survey itself.
Following these four tips will help you maintain higher response rates on your surveys and get the information that you need to take action. If you have any questions about how to best create or implement a survey, feel free to reach out!