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Preparing Employees for the Engagement survey

SMT

Engagement survey is conducted to assess employees ownership towards the organization and also build organization by making employees part of it. To go ahead with the process, organization has to initiate a survey and assimilate the results to understand the present status and chart out improvements.

Having a well designed questionnaire for the survey does not necessarily ensure that all employees will respond to it whole heartedly. Therefore, the HR department of the Organization has to prepare the employees for the process.

There are several reasons as to why there could be a poor response to the survey

(i) The employees may not be genuinely aware of the Employee Engagement concept.

(ii) They may not be clear about the entire purpose of the survey

(iii) They may be fearful of the survey itself as they are not clear about how their responses will be viewed and used.

Hence it is absolutely essential to mentally prepare the employees to participate in the Employee Engagement survey, so that the purpose of the survey is met. Some of the action steps prior to initiating the survey are given below-

Intimating the employees about the survey which the Organization wishes to take up.Explaining what employee engagement concept is all about- the meaning, the purpose and the process.

The reason or the objective (e.g. to find out the opinions and feelings of employees with respect to the Organizational practices, identify area of improvement) for conducting the survey.

Explaining to the employees that their opinions and feelings on the Organizational practices are very significant for initiating changes in the organizational structure, design and processes.
Impressing on them that this is a methodology through which they can express their genuine views, opinions and feelings in a confidential manner.
Convey to the employees how the results from the survey(from their feedback) would help for the betterment of the organization and employees
Lastly, make it clear to the employees that the initiative is expensive and their participation is necessary to reap the benefits for their betterment.

The above steps can be communicated to the employees through e-mail by the HR team from Top Management .Its importance will be further strengthen if each of the Department head address their team about the Process. It would even yield better results if the employees are run through a small session about the Employee Engagement.
Our experience has shown that although you may have to allocate time to explain this whole process. It goes a long way in enhancing the employee participation in the Employee Engagement Survey.