The precursors to successful employee
and workplace evaluations

To achieve the best possible response rate, and the most honest and open responses, we encourage anyone considering an employee research process to...

• Ensure that you have buy-in and support from all organizational groups:
  • Your managers
  • Your Board of Directors
  • Unions and/or associations (where applicable)
  • Your human resource department
• Make sure that you have a Champion in senior management supporting the research and planning processes, and whatever may follow
• Create a Steering Committee to oversee the work of the researchers. Have all primary organizational groups represented on the committee
• Get agreement ahead of time from the Steering Committee that none of the study findings will be used for political or bargaining advantage by any of the stakeholders. Enter this agreement in the meeting minutes
• Invite ALL employees, including senior managers, to complete an employee questionnaire. Excluding some employees, through sampling, can harm the workplace by creating suspicion that people were intentionally omitted, or at least create a feeling of exclusion by those left out of the process. Using scanning technologies helps us to facilitate quick and accurate data entry from ALL of your employees. (See Automated Data Entry)
• Ensure the anonymity of all respondents
• Try to avoid on-line surveys
  • Not all employees will have access to the Internet, and some people will believe their on-line responses may not be anonymous.
  • Paper surveys will be more convenient for people who may be interrupted as they are working on their form. Employees can also put more thought into their responses when completing paper surveys
• Ensure that your organization has a plan in place, and the willingness, to address issues or concerns that may arise:
  • Be prepared to deal with unexpected or negative outcomes
  • Have the human and financial resources in place to follow through with at least some of the study recommendations
  • Follow the adage: If you don’t want to know, don’t ask
• Set your Evaluation Benchmarks prior to the research process
• Develop a Communication Strategy regarding study findings:
  • Be prepared to share at least some of the findings with study respondents
  • Decide, in advance, what findings can be shared, and with whom.