Promoting employee surveys is an essential part of data collection for employee surveys because, without a sufficient number of responses, survey results can be deemed flawed. You may have to start the entire survey process again. To avoid this, check out our tips below on how to increase response rates to your employee survey.

Prioritize Confidentiality 

Employees will only provide honest survey answers if they are guaranteed 100% anonymity.

• Allow employees privacy when completing the survey
• Do survey in groups
• Keep demographic questions to a minimum (Gender, age, race, months employed, shift, manager, company tenure, level of education)

For optimum confidentiality, partner with an external vendor. Benefits include:

• Higher survey response rates since employees feel safer and are not worried about potential consequences.
• Unbiased perspective since a third party will be impartial when analyzing the data.
• Proficiency in survey form design
• Access to relatively useful resources when required. For example, being able to support multiple data collection modes including online, paper, and telephone.

Ensure High Participation 

1. Promoting the survey online and offline. There are many ways to draw attention to the Employee Survey, for example:

• Company and Employee meetings
• Company events
• Letters
• Flyers
• Posters
• Newsletters
• Intranet postings
• Email signature
• Staff Magazine
• On-screen pop-up
• SMS
• Introductory video
• Presentation
• Slogan
• Emails
• Workboard

2. Get managers onboard. Managers are accountable for the participation of their departments or branches. Encourage them by emphasizing that the participation rate reflects their leadership ability. Their roles include highlighting the survey goal, benefits, and confidentiality, and addressing any concerns of their subordinates.

3. Highlight previous survey results. Emphasize the positive effects of past employee surveys. For example, new policies, equipment, or training the company provides because of the result of the survey.

4. Target influential employees. Identify star employees that other employees respect. Create a special meeting with them to discuss the survey, and get them on board to encourage their colleagues.

5. Offer incentives. An immediate reward can be the best motivator. For example:

• A free pizza if the target survey response rate is hit.
• Free lunch for the department with the highest response rate.

6. Schedule time for employees to take the survey while at work. Schedule an appropriate amount of time to complete the survey. Employees will be more motivated to answer employee surveys when they don’t feel like it’s extra work for them.

There you have it, How to Promote an Effective Employee Survey. Now, of course, for an employee survey to be genuinely useful, results need to be analyzed properly, and actions are taken.

Contact DataForce for more information on Survey Planning and Data Collection. We’ll optimize your project at every stage of production to be efficient, cost-effective, and precise, so you get the mission-critical data you need – on time, on the budget, and with world-class integrity. Top manufacturers look to DataForce for essential insights that help improve products, customer relationships, employee engagement, organization, and the world at large. From market research to customer satisfaction surveys to employee evaluations to certifications, we provide custom scalable solutions you can count on.