Smart employers regularly utilize an employee job satisfaction survey, an employee exit interview survey, and occasionally use surveys to ask employees about their attitudes, suggestions, and preferences.  Employee surveys are also useful to collect information or employee feedback as to the effectiveness and usefulness of employee training and informational meetings. Employee surveys can reveal unfounded and potentially dangerous rumors which are circulating among employees. Employee surveys should be considered to solicit employee input before initiating organizational change or changes in employee work rules, pay or benefits.

The data from an employee survey provides the employer with useful information to keep the organization on the right track. No one knows better the strengths and weaknesses of an organization and its management and then the employees who are responsible for delivering the employer’s product or service. The employees know what is working and what could work better. They are your greatest information resource. A survey allows an employee to share their concerns and perceptions with you in a safe environment. Employees who might never have the nerve to speak up in a large meeting or stop by your office to share an insight or observation will often be comfortable offering their thoughts in a well constructed survey. This is especially true if the employees know from your past actions that you will seriously consider their input.

Today almost every employer has a business email system and/or a business web page which makes doing an employee survey easier than ever before. If you are a small company without a lot of technical support there are survey software packages which allow you to easily design an employee survey, distribute it to employees and provide a convenient way for employees to return the survey.

Survey software often comes with employee survey templates and customer survey templates in one package. Survey software tools range from simple to complex and many software distributors offer simple survey software tools for the first time user that can be upgraded at a later date to include more complex survey and analysis tools.

When looking for survey software it is important that you are comfortable with the data analysis tools incorporated in the software.  Developing and delivering the employee survey is only half the battle. It is important that you have the capability to easily sort, analyze and interpret the data. Information from an employee survey or job satisfaction survey is powerful but only if you understand it and use it to make changes or confirm current practices are working.