Employee surveys

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Employee surveys are tools used by organizational leadership to gain feedback on and measure employee engagement, employee morale, and performance. Usually answered anonymously, surveys are also used to gain a holistic picture of employees' feelings on such areas as working conditions, supervisory impact, and motivation that regular channels of communication may not. Surveys are considered effective in this regard provided they are well-designed, effectively administered, have validity, and evoke changes and improvements. [1]

Employee engagement

Employee engagement is a fundamental concept in the effort to understand and describe, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the nature of the relationship between an organization and its employees. An "engaged employee" is defined as one who is fully absorbed by and enthusiastic about their work and so takes positive action to further the organization's reputation and interests. An engaged employee has a positive attitude towards the organization and its values. In contrast, a disengaged employee may range from someone doing the bare minimum at work, up to an employee who is actively damaging the company's work output and reputation.

Employee morale, in human resources, is defined as the job satisfaction, outlook, and feelings of well-being an employee has within a workplace setting. Proven to have a direct effect on productivity, it is one of the corner stones of business.

Performance performing arts event, single representation of a performing arts production

Performance is completion of a task with application of knowledge, skills and abilities.

Contents

History

The first employee surveys, commonly known as employee-attitude surveys, surfaced in industrial companies in the 1920s. Between 1944 and 1947, the National Industrial Advisory Board saw a 250% jump in companies that chose to conduct an attitude survey (within a 3,500 company group). [2] The increased awareness in measurement tools regarding employees’ attitudes is attributed to research and observation conducted during World War II, which sought to measure morale and replicate high-morale environments. The United States Army Research Branch, for example, conducted Soldier Surveys, which recorded the opinions of more than half a million soldiers on topics ranging from food quality to confidence in leadership. [3] Examples of early survey methods include printed questionnaires, directive interviews, and unguided interviews. [2]

Reasons for use

Present day employee surveys are used by an estimated 50 to 75% of companies [4] [5] to evaluate and progress organizational health as it pertains to personnel. This may include a focus on topics such as employee engagement, workplace culture, return on human capital (ROHC), and commitment.

United States federal agencies are required by law to conduct an annual survey. The Office of Personnel Management states that employee influence is a primary reason for conducting surveys, stating, “This is your opportunity to influence change in your agency. Your participation is voluntary and your responses are confidential. [6] ”

Methodology

Organizations conduct their own surveys, contract with a survey provider, or use a combination of both. Main-line survey providers have traditionally used similar survey question types and survey length over the course of years and throughout various industries. Comparison databases provide standard ranges on which certain factors can be placed, as well as correlations between coexisting factors (allowing for emphasis on the factor with highest correlation to a desired outcome). [7] In contrast, the advent of survey software, particularly online programs, has given organizational leadership tools to design and conduct their own surveys. In this case, the conducting leadership are responsible for tabulating and assessing the data.

Questions

A key component of employee surveys is the styling of questions. Variables in question design include: [8]

Questions that are vague, use technical jargon, are relevant to only a segment of survey-takers, or use phrasing that is interpreted differently across audiences sabotage survey effectiveness. Multiple choice answers, likewise, are a concern when there are missing plausible choices, or when choices are too wordy or too numerous. [9]

Related Research Articles

Industrial and organizational psychology, which is also known as occupational psychology, organizational psychology, and work and organizational psychology, is an applied discipline within psychology. I/O psychology is the science of human behaviour relating to work and applies psychological theories and principles to organizations and individuals in their places of work as well as the individual's work-life more generally. I/O psychologists are trained in the scientist–practitioner model. They contribute to an organization's success by improving the performance, motivation, job satisfaction, and occupational safety and health as well as the overall health and well-being of its employees. An I/O psychologist conducts research on employee behaviours and attitudes, and how these can be improved through hiring practices, training programs, feedback, and management systems.

Concept testing is the process of using surveys to evaluate consumer acceptance of a new product idea prior to the introduction of a product to the market. It is important not to confuse concept testing with advertising testing, brand testing and packaging testing; as is sometimes done. Concept testing focuses on the basic product idea, without the embellishments and puffery inherent in advertising.

Questionnaire construction refers to the design of a questionnaire to gather statistically useful information about a given topic. When properly constructed and responsibly administered, questionnaires can provide valuable data about any given subject.

A field of applied statistics of human research surveys, survey methodology studies the sampling of individual units from a population and associated techniques of survey data collection, such as questionnaire construction and methods for improving the number and accuracy of responses to surveys. Survey methodology includes instruments or procedures that ask one or more questions that may or may not be answered.

Opinion poll type of survey

An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a poll or a survey, is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence intervals.

Job satisfaction or employee satisfaction is a measure of workers' contentedness with their job, whether or not they like the job or individual aspects or facets of jobs, such as nature of work or supervision. Job satisfaction can be measured in cognitive (evaluative), affective, and behavioral components. Researchers have also noted that job satisfaction measures vary in the extent to which they measure feelings about the job. or cognitions about the job.

Questionnaire research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents

A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. The questionnaire was invented by the Statistical Society of London in 1838.

In social science research, social desirability bias is a type of response bias that is the tendency of survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others. It can take the form of over-reporting "good behavior" or under-reporting "bad," or undesirable behavior. The tendency poses a serious problem with conducting research with self-reports, especially questionnaires. This bias interferes with the interpretation of average tendencies as well as individual differences.

A research design is the set of methods and procedures used in collecting and analyzing measures of the variables specified in the problem research. The design of a study defines the study type and sub-type, research problem, hypotheses, independent and dependent variables, experimental design, and, if applicable, data collection methods and a statistical analysis plan. A research design is a framework that has been created to find answers to research questions.

A self-report study is a type of survey, questionnaire, or poll in which respondents read the question and select a response by themselves without researcher interference. A self-report is any method which involves asking a participant about their feelings, attitudes, beliefs and so on. Examples of self-reports are questionnaires and interviews; self-reports are often used as a way of gaining participants' responses in observational studies and experiments.

Computer-assisted web interviewing (CAWI) is an Internet surveying technique in which the interviewee follows a script provided in a website. The questionnaires are made in a program for creating web interviews. The program allows for the questionnaire to contain pictures, audio and video clips, links to different web pages, etc. The website is able to customize the flow of the questionnaire based on the answers provided, as well as information already known about the participant. It is considered to be a cheaper way of surveying since one doesn't need to use people to hold surveys unlike computer-assisted telephone interviewing. With the increasing use of the Internet, online questionnaires have become a popular way of collecting information. The design of an online questionnaire has a dramatic effect on the quality of data gathered. There are many factors in designing an online questionnaire; guidelines, available question formats, administration, quality and ethic issues should be reviewed. Online questionnaires should be seen as a sub-set of a wider-range of online research methods.

Managerial psychology is a sub-discipline of industrial and organizational psychology, which focuses on the efficacy of individuals, groups and organizations in the workplace. Its purpose is to specifically aid managers in gaining a better understanding of the psychological patterns common among individuals and groups within any given organisation. Managerial psychology can be used to predict and prevent harmful psychological patterns within the workplace and can also be implemented to control psychological patterns among individuals and groups in a way that will benefit the organisation long term..

In research of human subjects, a survey is a list of questions aimed at extracting specific data from a particular group of people. Surveys may be conducted by phone, mail, via the internet, and sometimes face-to-face on busy street corners or in malls. Surveys are used to increase knowledge in fields such as social research and demography.

The term managerial assessment of proficiency (MAP) describes a methodology for the assessment of managerial competence in human resource and training applications. MAP is designed for evaluation of a manager's proficiency in 12 prescribed competencies, and other criteria. Assessments can be generated for an employee, as well as for a department or the organisation as a whole. Normative values, used for comparative purposes in each assessment, are based upon the performance of over 110,000 managers, across 17 countries, in more than 600 organisations that have used MAP, according to the UK-based company, Development Processes Group plc, that licenses the tool into organisations. The Managerial Assessment of Proficiency - (MAP2), copyright 2012, 2014, HRD Press, Inc. is an assessment tool published by HRD Press, Inc. Amherst, MA USA, and is available throughout the world. "Development Processes Group plc" is the exclusive representative in the United Kingdom.

With the application of probability sampling in the 1930s, surveys became a standard tool for empirical research in social sciences, marketing, and official statistics. The methods involved in survey data collection are any of a number of ways in which data can be collected for a statistical survey. These are methods that are used to collect information from a sample of individuals in a systematic way. First there was the change from traditional paper-and-pencil interviewing (PAPI) to computer-assisted interviewing (CAI). Now, face-to-face surveys (CAPI), telephone surveys (CATI), and mail surveys are increasingly replaced by web surveys.

Self-rated health refers to both a single question such as “in general, would you say that your health is excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor?” and a survey questionnaire in which participants assess different dimensions of their own health. This survey technique is commonly used in health research for its ease of use and its power in measuring health.

Stanley Presser, a social scientist, is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, where he teaches in the Sociology Department and the Joint Program in Survey Methodology (JPSM). He co-founded JPSM with colleagues at the University of Michigan and Westat, Inc., and served as its first director. He has also been editor of Public Opinion Quarterly and president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

References

  1. ↑ Knapp, Paul R. and Bahaudin G. Mujtaba. May 2010. "Designing, administering, and utilizing an employee attitude survey." Journal of Behavioral Studies in Business. Volume 2
  2. 1 2 Viteles, Morris S. Motivation and Morale in Industry. New York: Norton, 1953.
  3. ↑ Samuel Stouffer et al, Studies in Social Psychology in World War II (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1949), 1:Ch. 1
  4. ↑ "Veridic Technologies Pvt Ltd Employee Survey Report". scribd. Veridic Technologies Pvt Ltd. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
  5. ↑ Burke, R. J., & Cooper, C. L. (Eds.) (2006). The Human Resources Revolution: Why putting people first matters. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
  6. ↑ "Employee Surveys". opm.gov.
  7. ↑ Böckerman, Petri and Pekka Ilmakunnas. April 2012. "The Job Satisfaction-Productivity Nexus: A Study Using Matched Survey and Register Data." ILR Review. vol. 65 no. 2. 244-262.
  8. ↑ A.N. Oppenheim. Questionnaire Design and Attitude Measurement. Basic Books, Inc. New York. 1966. "Question-Wording."
  9. ↑ Cantril, H (ed.) Gauging Public Opinion. Princeton University Press. Princeton, NJ.1944. Cited by H.H. Remmers. Introduction to Opinion and Attitude Measurement. Greenwood Press. Westport, CT. 1972.
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