Are Traditional Employee Surveys Obsolete?

{{ excerpt(`Capturing employee engagement data with traditional surveys may have been popular several years ago, but these days, they are gradually becoming a thing of the past. One of the problems with formal surveys is that they are not always effective in gauging how employees feel about their jobs in the workplace. As companies try to navigate the increasing complexity of the business world, it is paramount that they shorten the feedback loop between frontline employees and leadership. Our company, PerkNow, has developed an innovative pulse survey tool that will shake up the way employee surveys are taken to produce more accurate employee engagement data for your organization.<h2><span style="font-size: 18px;">Statistics Showing The Decline Of Formal Employee Surveys</span><strong>&nbsp;</strong></h2>While formal surveys are not necessarily extinct, they are clearly on the decline. Here are some statistics that show an increasingly amount of companies are using employee engagement data beyond large, scale surveys.<div data-empty="true"><br></div>-As compared to 89 percent in 2015, experts believe that 74 percent of companies will still use formal, large scale surveys in 2019.<div data-empty="true"><br></div>-According to research performed by Gartner, roughly 59 percent of companies are expected to use engagement data from sources other than traditional surveys in 2019.<div data-empty="true"><br></div>-Among companies that don’t use traditional, formal surveys, nearly 64 percent of them use small-scale pulse surveys and topic specific surveys to assess employee engagement.<div data-empty="true"><br></div>-By 2020, Gartner predicts that approximately 63 percent of organizations will use annual employee surveys and 80 percent will use other employee monitoring data.<div data-empty="true"><br></div>Since formal surveys are slowly declining, there needs to be a better way to obtain a more holistic ‘voice of the employee.’ Although many companies still use survey software like Google Forms, some human resources executives, C-Suite executives, and managers often do not know the appropriate questions to ask their employees or the right way to measure and create actionable data with the responses.<h2><span style="font-size: 18px;">The Definition Of A Pulse Survey</span></h2>In many cases, a pulse survey can replace formal surveys. Typically based on the same employee engagement model as the annually survey, the pulse survey features a subset of questions that are sent to a specific group of employees. Contrary to annual surveys, these types of surveys allow for frequent measurement from a smaller group of employees.<h2><span style="font-size: 18px;">Introducing A New Way Of Capturing Employee Engagement Data</span></h2>Our innovative <a href="http://perknow.com/insights" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">pulse survey tool</a> enables companies to capture real-time insights from their employees, which will ultimately shorten the feedback loop. Developed by human resources thought leaders, the tool’s preset question hub allows you to select how frequently you would like to send the survey campaigns. The surveys can be sent to your employees weekly, every two weeks, or monthly.<div data-empty="true"><br></div>After you select the frequency of the survey campaigns, the software will automatically send employees relevant questions. The questions are typically based on key engagement drivers, and they are scored on a 5-point scale. The software is designed to calculate a global employee engagement score in real time on the average of the key engagement driver scores.<div data-empty="true"><br></div>All of the pulse questions that are sent to employees contain four questions and a free response. The responses will be anonymous so that the employees are safe to provide honest feedback, instead of voicing their concerns on external platforms like <a href="http://glassdoor.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Glassdoor</a>. To ensure that you can resolve issues quickly, the tool is equipped with an inbox where you can respond to the free response comments in a private, two-way chat.<h2><span style="font-size: 18px;">The Importance Of ‘Voice-Of-The-Consumer’ Initiatives</span><strong>&nbsp;</strong></h2>Many companies are using pulse surveys as part of a voice-of-the-consumer or VoC initiative. Along with pulse surveys, VoC initiatives may include sentiment analytics, social network analysis, feedback channels, and social recognition. The primary goal of these concepts is to create a more holistic voice of the employee or VOE.<h2><span style="font-size: 18px;">Menu Of Choices To Produce VOE (Voice-Of-The-Employee)</span></h2><h3><em><span style="font-size: 14px;">The Annual/Biannual Survey:</span></em><span style="font-size: 14px;">&nbsp;</span></h3><span style="font-size: 14px;">Known</span> as a robust tool for effectively measuring employee engagement, the annual/biannual survey can be used to determine what employees think about a company, but not necessarily why employees think the way they do.<h3><em><span style="font-size: 14px;">The Pulse Survey:</span></em><span style="font-size: 14px;">&nbsp;</span></h3>A pulse survey features the same employee engagement model as the annual survey. One of the main differences between the two is that a pulse survey will deliver a subset of questions to a subset of employees.<h3><em><span style="font-size: 14px;">Social Analytic Tools:</span></em><span style="font-size: 14px;">&nbsp;</span></h3>These tools are designed to analyze the relationship and work patterns among employees through social networks, emails, and employee interactions.<br><h3><em><span style="font-size: 14px;">Employee Sentiment Analysis:</span></em><span style="font-size: 14px;">&nbsp;</span></h3>Sentiment analytics have been shown to analyze employee engagement through their everyday activities including emails, texting, social discussion threads, and surveys.<h2><span style="font-size: 18px;">A Great Pulse Survey Tool Is Definitely The Answer&nbsp;</span></h2>A great pulse survey tool is not only necessary for shortening the feedback loop, it’s also important when your goal is to build a culture where the employee feels heard. When employees feel free to voice their concerns, they are more likely to stay with the company, and the overall morale of an organization will be greatly enhanced. The good news is that our new survey tool, PerkNow is now available so you will be able to shorten the feedback loop between frontline employees and leadership. We offer this tool at half the cost of our competitors (CultureAmp, Officevibe,Glint, TINYpulse).`) }} ...