So you sent out an employee engagement survey, and responses are in — great! It’s time to dig into the details to learn how your employees feel about your survey topic. After you analyze their feedback, there’s one more essential step in the employee engagement survey process: taking action.
Taking action after employee surveys is critical. Without follow-up, you’ll have a hard time convincing your employees you care about their opinions and feedback. Even if the number of positive survey responses easily outweighed the negative, failing to acknowledge and respond won’t instill confidence or loyalty in your employees.
But how you should respond to employee feedback isn’t always clear, especially if their answers skew negative. That’s why we asked an expert, ClearCompany’s Senior Vice President of People & Culture, Angie Wideman-Powell, to share her knowledge.
In this guide, we’ll learn about Wideman-Powell’s process for taking action on employee survey results. We’ll also get her advice on how your HR team can respond effectively to three different employee surveys, especially when employees’ perceptions are less-than-favorable.
Why You Need Employee Surveys
Before we talk about responding to employee engagement survey results, it’s important to understand why this process is so valuable to HR and the business. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of sending — and responding to —employee surveys.
1. Understand Employee Sentiment
You can only guess how your people are feeling about your company unless you ask them. Employee surveys give you a direct line to what they think about any given topic, from the work environment and workplace culture to their compensation and benefits and everything in between. Their feedback can tell you both what they feel is lacking and what’s working well, giving you a chance to improve engagement and celebrate wins.
2. Build Trust and Engagement
Whether or not employees feel their voices are heard at work is a defining factor for their level of engagement — and even for business outcomes. Employees who feel heard are almost five times more likely to feel they can do their best at their jobs. The ability to give feedback without the risk of humiliation or retaliation creates psychological safety for your people, which fosters learning and company growth.
3. Uncover Hidden Issues
It’s not always easy for employees to speak up, even if they feel psychologically safe. Fortunately, employee surveys (if they’re anonymous) are an excellent avenue for them to share their concerns. Surveys can help reveal areas for improvement that are not readily apparent, like communication gaps, a lack of resources, or interpersonal conflicts.
4. Drive Meaningful Change
With the actionable insights you glean from employee surveys, you have the ability to make changes that have a real impact on your organization. Instead of relying on trial and error, you can make informed decisions to improve key areas of concern for your employees.
5. Retain Top Talent
Employee retention is a top priority for 70% of CHROs this year, and surveys can be a powerful retention tool. You can send surveys to longtime employees to learn what keeps them at your organization and what might put them at risk. Then, your team can proactively address their concerns and take steps to reduce turnover.
6. Measure the Success of HR Initiatives
As you send surveys over time, the responses you receive help you understand whether or not your people initiatives are succeeding. It also gives you insight into other factors that might be affecting engagement. For example, if you measure employee engagement on a regular basis, you can keep an eye on the impact of strategic changes and determine whether it’s helping or harming your workforce — or not having an impact at all. Regular tracking also enables HR agility, giving you the opportunity to make timely adjustments to your strategies.
7. Encourage Ongoing Growth
A steady employee survey schedule combined with your team’s consistent data analysis of the responses helps create a culture of continuous improvement. By encouraging communication and transparency, surveys empower your employees to play an active role in the company’s growth and success.
Expert Advice for Your Employee Survey Response Action Plan
We’ve covered why surveying and responding to employee feedback matters. Now, let’s get our SVP of People & Culture’s top tips for the most effective employee engagement surveys.
Set a Goal Before You Send
First and foremost, in the employee survey process, you need to define its purpose. “Don’t send a survey just to send a survey,” said Wideman-Powell. “You need a clear purpose and know what information or feedback you are seeking from your workforce.”
Sending survey after survey without a clear reason is not only a waste of time for your team but also a drain on employee engagement. “If you’re not going to act on the information, people will get survey fatigue — they just won't answer anymore.”
“How you address the results can look different, but it’s a very important part of the employee survey process. Whether you recap the results in an internal newsletter or present them during an all-staff meeting (like we do at ClearCompany), thoughtfully share with employees their collective feedback and what the organization is going to take action on based on that feedback.”
To Be or Not To Be Anonymous
Anonymous surveys can encourage employees to respond honestly, but total anonymity can make it a little more difficult for your team to act effectively. Wideman-Powell found a reliable solution you can use for many different types of surveys.
“I'm a fan of semi-anonymous surveys that gather data around a few identifying factors,” said Wideman-Powell. “That could be any number of things, like the respondent’s department, location, manager, or whether they’re remote or hybrid.
“There can be pretty drastic swings between some of those cohorts. Semi-anonymous surveys can really help you get a better sense of who’s happy and who’s not. Are your less-satisfied employees sprinkled throughout the workforce —which is normal — or do you have a problem area?
“You might also choose to collect some demographic information for certain surveys, which could include characteristics like age range or generation, gender, or geographic location. That helps you get a sense of, for example, how women or Gen Z employees are feeling compared to other cohorts.”
With a little bit of data around who’s saying what, you can better tailor your responses to the needs of your workforce. Wideman-Powell advised limiting semi-anonymity to either workplace cohorts, like departments, or demographics, like gender or age, to avoid accidentally identifying any employees.
Face the Feedback
After your survey results are in, don’t wait to keep your people updated on the results —face the feedback as soon as possible. Don’t leave employees hanging for weeks or months. Let your people know what to expect next with a company-wide Slack message or email, whether you’ll be presenting the results in the next all-staff meeting or sending a follow-up survey.
“Don't shy away from constructive feedback, especially if it’s negative. Address it head-on,” said Wideman-Powell. She’s got a winning formula for how you can respond to feedback fast.
First, identify the most specific feedback. That tells you where employee satisfaction is the strongest and what’s at the forefront of their concerns. To encourage these kinds of responses, with every survey, Wideman-Powell reiterates to employees the impact their opinions can have. “I encourage employees to treat surveys as an opportunity to express their ideas and solutions versus a place to vent any frustrations,” she said.
You can also analyze survey results to find quick wins — small improvements your team can make right away to let employees know they were heard. Last but not least, determine which insights have the biggest impact on the business.
For example, a few complaints about the brand of coffee in the break room won’t make or break employee engagement. But if your survey reveals employees overwhelmingly preference for remaining remote, an RTO mandate might just break it.
Follow Through With Follow Up
Employee surveys are seldom one-and-done, especially if you’re tracking the efficacy of your team’s response to a survey. Follow-up surveys make it clear to employees that their input is valued. They also help you decide if you’re moving in the right direction.
Wideman-Powell advises sending a solutions survey as a follow-up to elicit more insight around any constructive criticism from employees. That framing helps put employees in a problem-solving mindset. It’s also important to run some of the same surveys on a regular basis so you can measure progress.
“If you’re taking action and not talking about the action, that’s a missed opportunity because you want people to feel heard,” said Wideman-Powell. “Even if you aren’t able to act on every piece of feedback, you can still communicate that it was received.”
Send follow-ups to clarify constructive feedback, gauge whether your actions were helpful, and get more information from your employees. You can also follow up, especially on positive feedback, by sharing that feedback. Let employees know if they were mentioned by name, or select a few glowing comments to share during an all-staff meeting.
One instance where you might not need to follow up is after an Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) survey. The eNPS survey is a simple, one-question pulse survey for “taking the pulse” of your workforce. It asks employees, on a scale of zero to ten, how likely they are to recommend your company as a good place to work. Higher scores indicate that your employees are largely satisfied with their roles.
The eNPS results can certainly inform HR strategy, and you might share your score with your employees, especially if it’s favorable. However, you won’t always need to dive as deeply into the responses with your entire workforce. You and your team members can use them to benchmark engagement and inform strategic development.
Get even more advice on how to motivate and connect with your employees with ClearCompany’s Employee Engagement Megabundle.
Download your resources.
Targeted Tips for Three Employee Surveys
Wideman-Powell shared her advice for responding to these three common employee engagement surveys, especially when their answers indicate dissatisfaction.
Employee Engagement Survey
If your employee engagement survey questions revealed lower engagement than you expected, Wideman-Powell said it might be time to dig deeper. If your survey asked employees to specify their departments, you can spot any teams where low scores are more highly concentrated. Then, you can address issues at a more granular level.
At ClearCompany, department heads are encouraged to take time to discuss their team’s responses in smaller groups regardless of whether they skew positive or negative. Your employees’ insights can give more context to their scores, low or high.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) Survey
This survey can tell you if employees feel your company is honoring its commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, or DEIB. Collecting some demographic information can help you determine the sentiment of various demographics of employees. However, you want to be sure you collect this information in a thoughtful way that does not expose any one employee’s identity. If you’re receiving lots of negative feedback, this is a good time to send one of the solutions surveys we mentioned.
It’s also a good time to practice transparency and reinforce your commitment to DEIB, says Wideman-Powell. Let employees know that their feedback was heard and that your company wants to better understand where it’s falling short. In addition to sending a follow-up survey for more detailed feedback, you can invite employees to talk to HR directly about their concerns.
If you do send a solutions survey, Wideman-Powell recommends reinforcing your support for your employees so that serious problems can be resolved. “Let employees know that the survey is for general feedback about DEIB progress. Be clear that any grievances should be reported directly to HR.”
Stay Motivators Survey
A stay motivators survey helps you understand what longtime employees like best about working at your organization. With that knowledge, you can “amplify and reinforce what your people feel positive about,” especially when you’re recruiting candidates, said Wideman-Powell.
If you have lots of employees indicating that not much is motivating them to stay, that could be a sign that your engagement strategy is in need of improvement. But Wideman-Powell encourages HR teams not to stress over a few unsatisfied employees.
“You can’t please every single person, and if you are, that could indicate too much flexibility in your values or standards,” said Wideman-Powell. “If the majority of your employees are happy, you’re doing something right.”
Stay motivator survey responses can also help your HR team ensure senior leadership is aware of what’s driving retention and make the case for budgeting needs. For example, imagine budget cuts are on the table, and executives propose a reduced 401(k) match. If your stay motivators survey indicates that’s an especially popular benefit, you can advise against that decision and present the data to back it up.
Get Your Ready-to-Launch Employee Survey Templates
Don’t let the uncertainty of how to take action stop you from sending employee surveys. You need their unique perspectives to develop HR strategies tailored to their needs and informed by their feedback. Take this expert advice into account during your next survey cycle to build trust with your people and strengthen your company culture.
You can kickstart your next survey cycle today with ClearCompany’s Employee Engagement Survey templates. You’ll get access to three ready-to-use templates so you can run the three employee surveys we discussed in our post.
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