Managing up for survey success: how to engage senior leadership in employee surveys.

How many chief executives would authorize their companies to spend thousands each year to survey their customers, and then not monitor the process? Or take appropriate action on the findings? Or ask whether the investment is generating a valuable return for the company?

Probably not many. But substitute "employees" for "customers" and the picture is likely to be quite different in many organizations. More than 70 percent of all U.S. employers regularly conduct employee surveys, sometimes spending thousands or even hundreds of thousands annually. But too often, top executives take a "hands-off" approach to employee surveys. They delegate responsibility down the line--most often to corporate communication or human resource professionals--and have little involvement in the process.

This lack of leadership interest can be costly. Most obviously, an ineffective survey can waste organizational resources--the time, effort and money that go into conducting an employee survey. But perhaps more important, an ineffective survey can damage the all-important relationship between the organization and its employees, and it can hamper the organization in improving its performance.

Employee surveys are more effective and productive when senior management leads the process and is fully engaged, The challenge, for the people responsible for conducting these surveys, is conveying this important message to senior executives and winning their engagement in the survey process.

GETTING MANAGEMENT'S ATTENTION

Communicators must present a compelling business case to capture the attention of senior management and convince them that involvement in the survey process is worth their time. Following are some arguments to help make your case:

* Executives may not know that the science of employee surveys has changed dramatically over the past decade. The traditional employee satisfaction survey, largely a barometer of employee happiness with pay, benefits, job security and working conditions--the "Me" issues--has been replaced by the human capital survey, a valuable diagnostic tool that can drive business results. This new generation of surveys measures employee and management perceptions of company issues such as business strategy, operating efficiency, innovation, leadership, cross-group collaboration, career development and employee commitment--the "We" issues, Human capital surveys allow the organization to link reliable information directly to organizational goals and important business objectives, such as employee retention, customer satisfaction and business performance, as the following research proves.

* Mercer's "What's Working" survey--conducted in both the U.S. and U.K. during the past year--shows that employee satisfaction, employee commitment and intention to stay or leave are related to organizational communication, including whether an organization conducts employee surveys and, if so, what it does with the results (see chart for some compelling evidence).

* The same Mercer study confirms what many people already suspect: workers' trust in management is low. Poor communication contributes significantly to this problem. Only 34 percent of U.S. workers agree that "I can trust management in my organization always to communicate honestly." For U,K. workers, the number is 39 percent, A well-designed and well-conducted survey can go a long way toward addressing employee trust issues.

* Senior management involvement helps to maximize the investment a company makes in employee research. Large companies can spend upwards of US$500,000 on a comprehensive, global employee survey. Senior management involvement helps achieve the best return on this major investment by bringing a more strategic perspective to the survey effort and by focusing organizational attention and resources on using the survey results. Top leadership support also positively influences the response rate.

* Conducting a survey poorly can be more damaging than not conducting a survey at all--the outcome can be negative, not just neutral. Employees may consider the investment of time and resources--including their personal time completing the instrument--a waste if management does nothing in response to survey findings. In addition, it can damage the employer/employee relationship if employees perceive that management wants to hear from them but is not interested in providing information to employees in return. Employees will remember this the next time they are asked to participate in an employee survey or provide any kind of input.

HOW AND WHEN TO INVOLVE SENIOR MANAGEMENT

You've gotten the attention of senior leaders; they are on board and eager to be involved. Now the challenge is to make optimal use of their participation. Senior leaders should be involved in four critical aspects of the survey process:

* Setting survey philosophy. Top executives need to provide context and direction to the survey effort. (Why is the organization conducting the survey? On which important business issues is it most critical to get employee input? What is the survey intended to accomplish and, just as important, what isn't it designed to do? What message does management want to send to the organization? How will the survey dovetail with other organizational measures? What will the organization do with the results? Should the survey support any behavioral or cultural changes?)

The CEO of a large U.S. health care system saw the employee survey as an opportunity to support organization wide change. He wanted to know where appropriate change was and wasn't occurring within the system, and how employees were faring during a time of tremendous change. He personally led the survey effort, communicating with employees about what would happen, when and why, and he stressed the importance of their input to the change process. After the survey was done, the CEO regularly communicated with employees to let them know how the results would be used and what actions they could expect.

* Defining survey content. Leadership needs to set priorities for the survey content (i.e., given the broad range of possibilities, what will be included in the survey?). Executives add considerable value by ensuring that the organization's business strategy and critical success factors (e,g., how the organization measures success) are reflected in the survey content.

A financial institution in the U.K., for example, could have addressed a number of issues through its employee survey. To achieve maximum impact, the leadership group selected three issues determined to be mission critical for the organization: customer service, quality of supervision and communication. Their up front involvement and input added focus to the entire survey effort, particularly the design of the instrument.

* Communicating with employees. The top executive should be the primary communicator and chief advocate for the survey, with principal messages reinforced by other managers (e.g., group, department, unit or division managers). The underlying message should be that communication about employee research is not a one-time "event," but an ongoing process. Top executives should be visible and in touch with employees at milestones in the survey process.

* Driving the feedback/action-planning process, Under the banner of employee "empowerment," it is common for top executives to drive action planning to the lowest possible level within the organization. This can be overwhelming for managers and employees (especially with 100-plus questions on a typical survey) and can dilute the impact of the feedback/action-planning process. A better approach is for senior leaders to review the survey findings first, identify the important "stories," and set action priorities before soliciting input on possible actions. Analysis of top-line survey findings should come first from the top executive, then in more detail from other managers down the line.

GETTING IT RIGHT

Some CEOs are excellent role models. They understand the value of employee surveys and make a wholehearted commitment to the process. Consider the example set by Bob Dubrish, president and CEO of Option One Mortgage Corp., a mortgage banking firm based in Irvine, Calif.

"Mortgage banking is something of a commodity--in other words, the basics of what we do are the same as what other mortgage companies do," says Dubrish. "What sets Option One apart and has contributed to our rapid growth is the positive culture we've created, which attracts and keeps engaged associates, who attend to the needs of the business and our customers."

Dubrish notes that five years ago, the company's total mortgage originations were US$3.5 billion. In the most recently ended fiscal year, total origination volume had grown to US$16.6 billion, an increase of 474 percent. The number of associates has grown, too, over this five year period--from 1,637 in 1999 to more than 3,800 today.

Under Dubrish's direction, Option One participates enthusiastically in the annual associate survey conducted each spring by its parent company, H&R Block. Option One also conducts a brief "Pulse" survey each fall, using 15 questions that reflect on the performance of senior leadership and are linked to measures of business success. Dubrish's philosophy: "Anything we measure, we always do better."

Option One's CEO is actively involved in all aspects of the survey process--from developing survey questions and encouraging survey participation to driving the action-planning process and communicating results. Dubrish typically spends a full day with his team of senior leaders poring over the survey results. Together, they identify important findings, set priorities and provide direction for action planning.

Senior leaders then engage Option One managers throughout the company to communicate the findings to all employees and to meet Dubrish's mandate for each manager: Identify up to three initiatives that you will undertake within the next year to improve on issues identified by the survey. Managers have 60 days to identify initiatives and present their action plans to the CEO.

"Our human resources team tracks departments whose associate satisfaction scores are consistently high," Dubrish says. "In doing so, Option One can learn from the leaders of those departments what they are doing well and then share these best practices with other managers throughout the organization."

There's another way Option One associates know Dubrish means business about the survey: He links 20 percent of managers' annual incentive pay to the results of the annual Pulse survey. Although this move was considered controversial at first, it has worked well. "You automatically get leaders engaged when you attach it to their pay," says Kristiina Hintgen, Option One's vice president of human resources. Executives and managers pay close attention to what employees are telling them through the survey and are highly motivated to work on areas identified as needing improvement.

Conducted this way, the associate satisfaction survey provides many benefits for Option One: It keeps associates committed and engaged, it keeps executives and managers focused on being effective leaders, and it brings everyone together in an effort to enhance organizational performance. But it wouldn't have happened without the sponsorship and vision of a farsighted CEO.

AMONG EMPLOYEES WHO AGREE THAT:

Management in my organization                  72 percent feel a strong
communicates survey findings                   sense of commitment to
to employees                   [right arrow]   their organization

Management in my organization                  45 percent feel a strong
does not communicate survey                    commitment to their
findings to employees          [right arrow]   organization

AMONG EMPLOYEES WHO AGREE THAT:

Management takes meaningful                    85 percent feel a strong
action on issues identified                    sense of commitment to
through employee surveys       [right arrow]   their organization

Management does not take                       41 percent feel a strong
meaningful action on issues                    sense of commitment to
identified through employee                    their organization
surveys                        [right arrow]

RELATED ARTICLE: One president's perspective.

As president and COO for Mercer Human Resource Consulting in the U.S., Karen B. Greenbaum, ABC, is a leader in managing the employee survey process for Mercer's 13,000 employees worldwide. In a prior role, she was global leader of Mercer's communication consulting practice. From her personal experience, Greenbaum offers the following insights and advice to both business leaders and communicators.

What do you believe is the most valuable use of employee surveys?

Continuous improvement. Internal benchmarking against your own data--against previous survey information--is far more important than benchmarking against external norms.

What advice can you offer other top executives regarding employee surveys?

Don't conduct a survey unless you are willing to commit to three things: honest communication of results, significant action planning across the organization to respond to issues and concerns raised by the survey, and a willingness to do the survey again to measure progress against actions. Survey results can help you move closer toward your mission and vision, so listen to what your employees--the best observers of your organization--have to say. They can be invaluable in identifying organizational barriers to success.

Be actively involved in the survey design and review the full survey results yourself. Don't just look at a high-level summary. You'll miss critical information and insights that way.

What advice can you offer communicators about engaging senior leadership in the survey process?

Lay out the "absolute requirements" for the survey to make sure the leadership understands and owns the survey process. This should be part of the communication strategy you develop for all of your audiences, including top leadership, management/supervisors and employees at large. And remember, a critical success factor for surveys is action planning, so have a clear game plan for how this should be done and the role senior leadership should play.

What tells you that your survey effort has been successful?

Participation is always a good indicator. High participation shows that employees care and are interested in expressing their views. It also suggests a high level of trust and a high degree of management support. If participation is low or spotty in certain geographic locations or facilities, dig deep to find out why.

Don't equate success with receiving high scores on the survey. The key to a survey is asking questions that drive continuous improvement. If you get too many highly favorable responses on survey items, maybe you're asking the wrong questions. After all, what organization is flawless?

Rod Fralicx, Ph.D., based in St. Louis, Mo., USA, is global employee research director for Mercer Human Resource Consulting. He can be reached at [e-mail]

Paul Sanchez, ARC, based in London, is practice leader for communication consulting in the U. K. for Mercer Human Resource Consulting. He can be reached at [e-mail]