Employee Surveys and Finding the Truth

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Two different people in two totally different industries have contacted me in the last week to discuss employee surveys. In one case the company sent what they professed to be an anonymous opinion survey but the employees quickly discovered that there were markers which seemed to identify each survey with the person who completed it. In another case, the company decided to bring in leaders from other parts of the company to interview employees.

Both attempts were doomed to fail because there was a serious issue of trust.

Whether or not the first company really did produce an “anonymous” survey that wasn’t anonymous, it appeared that way to the employees who were already suspicious of the company’s motives. That company has established itself as dishonest and employees will not trust anything the company says in the future. Quite frankly, I expect this lack of integrity, whether actual or just perceived, will cause this company to fail.

The second company decided to send in mid-level leaders from other parts of the company to determine the reason for low employee morale. That sounds like a good plan, but a recent rash of dismissals and lack of information from their leaders has made the employees suspicious of everyone in the leadership ranks. This company’s efforts are commendable, but will probably not yield much useful information because of the lack of trust.

The common theme is trust. If employees don’t trust their leadership, they will not be open about problems in the company nor will they be inclined to suggest or pursue improvements. In both of these cases, the company has solicited employee opinions, but the employees don’t trust the company.

There are a few steps that leaders can take to begin to instill trust.

First, establish open lines of communication. Employees should be able to approach their management with problems and suggestions without fear of reprisals. What some find surprising is that the communication must go both ways and actually is more important from the top down. Leaders must be open and should pass as much information as possible to their employees. In one organization where I worked years ago we called ourselves the mushrooms because our leadership kept us in the dark and fed us; well you get the picture. You definitely do not want a company full of mushrooms.

Next, don’t ignore suggestions. Employees are very quick to get the message when suggestions are ignored. That doesn’t mean you have to adopt every suggestion an employee makes but you should at least acknowledge the suggestion and explain why you will or will not adopt it.

Third, solicit employee input. Doing this anonymously is a great idea, but it must be truly anonymous. In the second example, the company used a good technique by bringing someone in from the outside. I’ve done this myself and been pleased with the result. But, a word of caution. I didn’t necessarily like everything I heard. What I was pleased with was the opportunity to learn about problems I was not aware of so I could fix them.

Trust is difficult to establish and extremely easy to lose. Once lost it is very hard to regain. How much trust have you established?