Building an engaged and empowered workforce means taking an intentional approach to how your organization designs employee experience surveys. Each employee is unique based on their experiences, so target your surveys questions to people on different points in their journey.
Survey logic is a core element of a good survey design experience. It allows you to decide which demographic groups see which questions, getting the right questions in front of the right people. Using survey logic has become common practice in census surveys, and it can have the same power in pulses. Use these examples as inspiration to incorporate demographic logic into your pulse surveys.
Position Level
When larger decisions are being made, not all employees need to see every question. Larger initiatives may only be applicable to high-ranking individuals.
Example: When thinking about the larger strategy of the organization or considering key changes, start with your top-level employees: executives, directors, and managers. Those groups can speak to how pressing the need for a strategic shift truly is or can provide initial feedback on strategy decisions. Front line employees can then be asked more general questions – such as “What improvements would you like to see in the organization?”
Tenured Perspectives
New employees often don’t have enough experience to form trustworthy opinions on workplace topics. They may not yet be fully aware of their job expectations, how they will be measured, or what adjustments have been made since the last survey. Demographic logic segments the population and takes opinions from veteran employees who can better speak to long-term topics.
Example: You want to gauge the impact of your action plans that came out of your last engagement survey, which was conducted six months ago. Employees that started since the survey don’t know what’s changed, so it does no good to source their opinions.
Minority or Majority Group Perspectives
It can be useful to slice the population by business level (e.g. department, division, tenure) or more personal demographics (e.g. race/ethnicity, gender, veteran status).
Example:Your organization wants to include more women on the leadership team. For the entire population, you can ask what improvements could be made in order to improve diversity and inclusion within the organization. For women though, it could be helpful to ask if they’re seeing necessary changes to the selection/promotion process. Are they getting opportunities not previously available? Are they seeing changes in how their leadership potential is evaluated?