Agile survey tools (3): Ticking boxes hardly provides any insights, says Anne M. Schüller. It would be better to encourage honest answers through selective surveys.
When people choose their own words instead of ticking boxes on pre-formulated questionnaires, the results are much more valuable. Why not try the selective or serial survey method? This article is part of a series by Anne M. Schüller on fast, open, agile survey tools.
How is excellence created in a company? The management thinker Tom Peters once expressed this very enthusiastically in a lecture: ‘Organisations are nothing less than cathedrals in which the most diverse people passionately strive for excellence with the unleashed power of their imagination, their spirit and their innate entrepreneurial flair.’
Employee surveys are the perfect way to achieve this goal. I think anonymity is important in most cases, because the respondents will also take into account what the boss wants to hear. They will even want to please him if it is counterproductive for the company. No employee will tell their boss the whole truth, because ultimately it is the boss who decides their fate.
Orally, in writing or online?
Twenty20/@Wutzkoh
As a rule, I prefer the written form. On (virtual) paper, people tend to answer more honestly and express themselves more thoughtfully. In a face-to-face interview, on the other hand, the interviewer’s influence is often considerable. You want to appear likeable with your answers and present yourself in a good light. If other people are present, group dynamics also play a role. Opinion leaders set the basic tone and many follow this unquestioningly. Differing opinions are often not even expressed or even revised so as not to be seen as outsiders.
And pure online surveys? Although they are inexpensive, easy and quick to conduct, which is why they are becoming increasingly popular, they are only suitable for our purposes to a limited extent. In most cases, it is a matter of ticking predetermined boxes. The gain in knowledge is therefore low – unless the respondents can enter individual answers. However, this requires a considerable amount of additional work during the analysis, which is usually preferred to be avoided.
It is also not uncommon for respondents to tick only the top box in order to finish the questionnaire quickly. If the completion of the questionnaire is linked to a reward, only positive things are ticked anyway in order to be sure of getting the goodies. In both cases, the results are not only useless, but also dangerous, because wrong answers lead to wrong reactions.
Picking up the pace with selective surveys
Envato/Olivier_Le_Moal
Selective surveys can be conducted on a wide variety of topics. As you only ask a few questions, good preparation is required first. So think carefully: What are the most important or most valuable questions you should ask?
Then present the employees with a short questionnaire, which is answered in writing and – depending on the corporate culture – anonymously. Here are a few text examples:
What I miss most in our company: …
What particularly fascinates me about my job: …
What could be specifically improved in my workplace: …
My greatest wish for my manager is: …
What we could do better for our customers: …
Why our company is so important to me: …
What I would say about us to outsiders: …
What I would like to work on myself: …
Where I would like more support: …
What could motivate me to stay with the company for a long time: …
What I’ve always wanted to say: …
What you could ask at this point next time: …
Finally, there is one ultimate question that can also be asked alone at any time. Anonymity must be guaranteed in order to receive honest answers:
Would you choose our company again today? And if so, for what reasons? And if not, why not?
If negative answers are received, there must never be even the slightest attempt to find out who gave them. Such a breach of trust would be irreparable, also with regard to the other employees.
Alternatively, the interviewee can be given the following sentences to complete:
The future of our company is very important to me because …
I can well imagine working here for longer because …
I speak positively and proudly about us to third parties. And this is because …
I encourage interested parties to become our customers. And I do this because …
I encourage potential employees to apply to us because …
I don’t do any of this because …
Open questions like these don’t force people into a predetermined answer scheme. And they don’t degrade anyone to a tick box. Instead, they give everyone the opportunity to express themselves freely. As a result, individual employees will engage more intensively with the topics mentioned – and feel more involved because their creativity is called for. Above all, however, the company receives more useful answers than those that would come out of traditional employee questionnaires.
Very intensive: the serial event method
Envato/belyaaa
The serial event method is particularly suitable when it comes to ‘candidate experiences’ and ‘employee experiences’. Here, the ‘journey’ of an applicant through the recruitment process or the ‘journey’ of the employee through the company is considered. For this purpose, each interviewee describes the experiences he/she had in contact with the company. A step-by-step recapitulation allows all interaction points (touchpoints) to be identified and analysed.
To this end, for example, the new hire being interviewed is asked to recall the sequence of interaction points during the recruitment process, from the initial awareness phase through the information, interview, decision-making and familiarisation phase. Storytelling is used to describe what happened to him/her (the factual) and how he/she felt (the emotional) in episodic detail.
The selected touchpoints are then rated chronologically on a scale from zero to ten in the enthusiasm or disappointment range and entered in a chart. In this way, the overall course of a candidate or employee journey can be visualised very clearly without having to explain it at length. For example, you can see at a glance whether the journey was primarily positive or negative. The highlights and low points (pain points) are also immediately apparent. This is followed by quick action plans.
Please also read the following articles from the series by Anne M. Schüller:
Anne M. Schüller is a management thinker, keynote speaker, award-winning bestselling author and business coach. The business graduate is considered a leading expert in touchpoint management and customer-focused corporate management. She gives keynote speeches on these topics at conferences, trade conventions and online events. In 2015, she was inducted into the German Speakers Association Hall of Fame for her life's work. She was named Top Voice 2017 and 2018 by the business network Linkedin. Xing named her Top Writer 2018 and Top Mind 2020. Her Touchpoint Institute trains certified Touchpoint Managers and certified Orbit Organizational Developers.
