Employee engagement survey - the results

Just over a month ago our ‘U Say’ employee engagement survey for 2015 came to a close. Running up to this survey I was concerned about the return rate, as we changed the information collection method moving from a paper-based to an electronic format for a large section of employees – in fact, nearly 80 per cent of our staff had electronic surveys to complete for the first time. These same employees had the opportunity to complete a more comprehensive survey than in previous years, and so I was curious how these two changes would impact the return rate.

I am glad to say that we achieved a return rate of 65 per cent, which consistent with the return rate of the last survey in 2013. This is a fantastic result as the average for companies of our size is 48 per cent, according to Best Companies – an independent research company that helps organisations gain competitive advantage by measuring, recognising and improving employee engagement levels, and helped us carry out the survey.

As well as being pleased with this return rate, we have much more information available to us from the surveys – the vast majority of employees took the opportunity to complete the fuller survey and we therefore have a much richer source of data.

We are currently working alongside Best Companies, crunching the data to fully analyse our results, and the top line results are very pleasing. Most importantly, our results have improved for the company as a whole and as a one company, we can say that we have excellent levels of engagement. This is particularly pleasing as the organisation is facing many pressures created by the change in our business model and people having to face some fundamental changes in what they do, and how they do it. Best Companies have described the results we have achieved when faced with this level of change as “phenomenal”.

In any such survey not all of the results are as we would wish them to be, and we are currently starting our more detailed analysis of the results. The beauty of the Best Companies model is that you can identify which areas of the business need some attention -you can even identify specific questions that have resulted in lower scores!

We are now planning to communicate the results throughout the whole business over the coming days, as well as identifying any necessary actions that we need to complete. A lot of work went into preparing and running the survey, and the same level of commitment needs to be put into ensuring that we listen and act upon what our employees are saying to us – whether that be good, bad or indifferent.

The bottom line is that I am extremely proud of our results!