Does Your Survey Tool Have These Four Necessary Capabilities?

Let’s take a survey! On a scale of one to ten (one being the least and ten being the most) how important is it for surveys to get the most accurate and honest answers? We’re saying 10 and guessing your answer is probably a high number too. An effective survey can be an excellent tool to gather data and perspectives to help companies make better decisions. An ineffective survey can be a waste of time and actually give the wrong information, which can lead to poor decisions. We don’t want that.

Employee surveys, also known as workplace surveys, are a great tool for getting feedback and better understanding how your employees view their company and the workplace. This information can be used to foster an open and engaging work culture and to make decisions around employee experience. However, to get the most accurate and honest information you need the right survey tool to make the experience efficient, for both the survey taker and conductor. 

So here are four capabilities your survey should have to be the effective tool you need. 

Have Different Answer Formats

One of the most important features a survey should have, especially an employee survey, is ease of use. Basically, if the survey isn’t easy to answer and fill out, your employees are less likely to complete it. You want the survey taker to be focused on giving honest answers, instead of trying to figure how to work the survey. 

One of the best ways to make a survey easy to take is to offer different answer formats for the different questions you’ll have. Sometimes you’ll want to give them space for open-ended answers (“Explain in detail why…”) and other times you want to give them choices (“Which of the following…”). Maybe you want to have a scale from one to ten, like we did. For all your question types, make sure your survey can offer all the answer types.

You also want to make sure the survey-making process is easy for you, too! Make sure your survey tool gives you an easy way to format your different questions, like Assembly’s survey tool. You can easily format each question to your liking, move them around, and create the best survey experience for your employees. 

Schedule for Consistency

Consistency is key and so is frequency for data accuracy. Surveys shouldn’t be a one-time thing for your employees to do. There are so many changes and growth, it should be standard for your company to regularly conduct employee surveys. Like any data collection, the more you do it, the more information you have and the more you can do with that information! Having monthly, quarterly, and/or yearly surveys will allow you to see growth and compare from previous surveys. The more information you have available, the better decisions you’ll make. 

Don’t rely on yourself or a team to remember to conduct the surveys. Make sure your survey tool allows for scheduling so there’s one less thing you have to worry about. Whether it be a cadence or ad hoc, Assembly’s survey can be set up on  schedule that fits your company’s needs. 

Allow for Anonymous or Public Responses

To be, or not to be anonymous, that is the question. There are pros and cons to both survey answer types: anonymous or public. It also really depends on the questions you want to ask. For truly honest feedback, offering anonymous answers will decrease the fear of retaliation. If you’re looking for frank criticisms of what is and isn’t working at a company, anonymity is the better option. If you’re looking for more personalized feedback about a specific team or ways to improve individual experiences, then identified or public responses would be a better fit. 

Either way, your survey tool should give you the option of allowing for anonymous or public responses. Adeptly named, Anonymity is a survey tool from Assembly that gives you the flexibility to set up the survey you need.

Get Actionable Insights 

The most efficient survey is one that you can take an action from! Whether you need to make a decision or want ideas about how to improve employee experience, your surveys should give you the information you need to take those actions. 

And you don’t have to do it alone. An efficient survey tool like Assembly’s Anonymity should give actionable insights to help you make those decisions. Sometimes it can be as simple as clearly showing the participation rate and how many people responded. You can go deeper by looking at easy-to-understand trends and data over time. Anonymity also shows a summary of insights so you can get the information you want in one place. Learn more about how you can customize Anonymity to get the actionable insights you’re looking for here.  

Get Help with Your Employee Surveys

You’re in good company! 2,400+ organizations leverage Assembly as a Digital HQ to support their transition to hybrid work and nurture a positive workplace culture. We have templates and workflows that make it easy for you to create positive employee engagement experiences.

Check out some of the survey templates below and let us know how we can help you engage your employees.

• Engagement Surveys
• eNPS Surveys
• Employee Feedback
• Employee Satisfaction Surveys
• New Hire Surveys
• Exit Surveys