Peter Cappelli, Director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources, says that finding “out what is going on in their workplace and with employees—remains as important as ever” (1). Josh Bersin, HR analyst, author, and thought leader agrees, saying that “employee surveys of all types are more valuable and important now than ever before” (2), in part because collecting feedback from employees during COVID helps to demonstrate care for the employees and builds trust.
Is the traditional annual survey the best way to collect this feedback? According to Cappelli, there are several drawbacks of the traditional survey including:
- Low response rate due in part to length of survey
- Lack of broad representation among survey participants
- Lack of action taken in response to survey results
- Low trust among employees that responses are anonymous
A better approach includes collecting and compiling employee feedback from several sources including:
- Exit interview analysis
- Focus groups
- Analysis of discussions on coordination and scheduling platforms
- Natural-language processing software to analyze trends in performance appraisals
- Pulse surveys containing only a few questions
- New web-based products, such as Qualtrics, Medallia, Glint, Waggl, Cultivate, and Eskalera that can help elicit employee feedback and/or analyze workplace data
(1) https://www.wsj.com/articles/its-time-to-get-rid-of-employee-surveys-11596246683
(2) https://hrexecutive.com/bersin-3-reasons-we-shouldnt-get-rid-of-employee-surveys/