When it comes to employee engagement and satisfaction, every company has a different approach to measuring this type of sentiment.
With that being said, there are many ways to gauge one's job satisfaction, especially in the form of a survey. These types of surveys include online surveys, phone surveys, mail surveys, and even in-person interviews to better understand each employee.
However, choosing the right kind of survey for your company’s needs is dependent on a few factors. We’re not going to make this decision easy on you 😉.
Choosing which methodology for an employee engagement survey depends on:
- Your company's size
- The budget you have for Voice of Employee (VoE) research
- How many questions you’d like to include
- How in-depth you’d like the feedback to be
Whichever survey your company decides to go with, there are pros and cons to all survey methodologies. Our employee survey company will touch on these advantages and disadvantages below.
Employee Online Surveys
An online survey is a modern and popular survey method used to acquire feedback regarding an employee's mood, morale, and level of engagement.
The advantages of conducting online surveys 👍
Through technological advancements, these surveys are known to be quick, easy, and cost-effective - especially when compared to the speed and price of phone or mail surveys.
Online employee satisfaction surveys can reach a mass number of respondents at an accelerated rate. Moreover, the process of sending it out and filling it out can be done faster than ever before.
It’s a win-win for those distributing the survey and those who are taking the employee survey.
Another benefit of online surveys is its accessibility. Employees can access the survey online via desktop, phone, tablet, etc. The employee questionnaire can be taken virtually anywhere!
If our employee survey company had to choose, online surveys are the most cost-effective and quickest way to collect the feedback you are looking for.
The disadvantages of conducting online surveys 👎
The online survey might sound great; however, there are minor setbacks to using this type of questionnaire.
Since it is a form of quantitative research, there is a human element missing to it.
An online survey takes an analytical approach through collecting and analyzing the data that's received, but it prevents the survey facilitator from asking follow-up questions.
When conducting an online survey, it's challenging for the moderator to gauge how the respondent feels when answering each question.
For example, a common component in employee surveys is open-ended responses. You may ask employees to answer, “Explain what the leadership team can do to improve satisfaction in the workplace.”
While the leadership team may be looking for more in-depth feedback, there is no moderator to encourage deeper responses. An employee may answer, “More meetings.”
Does this mean more team meetings?
More one-on-one meetings?
What would they like to discuss in these meetings?
An online survey is not capable of asking unique follow-up questions to each open-ended response, but an interviewer is.
Employee Satisfaction Phone Surveys
With this type of survey, the interviewer and the respondent engage in a conversation over the phone. Throughout this conversation, the moderator has free range to ask in-depth questions and obtain detailed feedback.
Phone surveys are an essential research tool that, in this instance, is used to gain a deeper understanding of an employee and their job satisfaction.
The advantages of conducting phone surveys 👍
As opposed to online surveys, it's more likely that the participant will provide lengthy answers because it's easier to verbalize your thoughts than type them all out.
Another advantage of phone surveys is that the respondents aren't confined to a specific location, like an employee's workplace.
Each phone survey can be conducted remotely, which can be done outside of work and in the comfort of the employee’s home.
The disadvantages of conducting phone surveys 👎
There are also disadvantages to conducting phone surveys.
Firstly, this process can be time-consuming for the employee and the company, depending on its size.
For example, the bigger the company, the more time it will take to administer the survey. Since the interviewers ask for detailed responses, the interview can consume a chunk of the respondent's time.
It also takes additional time to analyze the feedback after the phone surveys are complete.
A third-party employee survey company often records the phone interviews and then has to submit each response to an online document.
Because this methodology is more time consuming, you will have to wait longer for the data and need a larger budget when compared to an online survey.
Employee Engagement Mail Surveys
The advantages of conducting mail surveys 👍
Some might view the mail survey as an outdated form of data collection, but there are some benefits to conducting an employee satisfaction mail survey.
For instance, employees have the freedom to take this survey at their own convenience, and once the survey is completed, they can mail it back to the facilitators with ease.
Similar to the phone survey, the respondent is not restricted to any location.
These participants can take it at their own homes. By being in their most comfortable environment and not being moderated by others, employees could provide more honest feedback in the survey.
Therefore, this type of research methodology can provide accurate responses to each question for those who don't have a tight deadline.
The disadvantages of conducting mail surveys 👎
Unfortunately, there are significant disadvantages to employing this research methodology. As you could imagine, this is not a timely process.
After the survey is created, it needs to be printed out and properly mailed to all employees, which can take up to seven days to reach each team member.
Once the employees complete the satisfaction survey, the VoE research team has to wait for a prolonged period of time to receive feedback from the participants.
A third-party then has to prepare, analyze, and distribute the data, which can be costly and time-consuming. So if you are in need of quick survey results and on a tight budget, this approach to employee surveys is not recommended.
Employee In-Depth Interviews
The advantages of conducting in-depth interview 👍
There are also plenty of benefits to in-depth interviews, also known as IDIs.
If this is the route that your company decides to take, then it is highly recommended to employ a third-party employee survey firm to guide the interviews, in order to receive accurate responses from the employees.
It is also important to conduct the interviews in a neutral setting to make sure the interviewees are comfortable with sharing information.
No employee will be 100% honest with their job satisfaction if their boss or the HR department is interviewing them.
Once the interviews are underway, companies can obtain a vast amount of information and gain a deeper insight into the minds of each employee.
Additionally, these discussions are facilitated in person or over a web interview, so the interviewer has the advantage of picking up on social cues throughout the interview. This could lead to more accurate results.
The disadvantages of conducting IDIs 👎
Even though companies can receive a significant amount of information from IDIs, there are disadvantages to this methodology.
First of all, it is a time-intensive process.
Unlike a phone survey, an IDI can range anywhere from thirty to ninety minutes long. After a while, the interview can feel almost like an interrogation to some participants.
Depending on the company's size, this can become a lengthy process to interview each employee, especially for large corporations.
The process can also be expensive. Since it's preferred to outsource interviewers, it can become costly for companies to hire the interviewers and rent out space to conduct the interviews.
This might not be the best option for large scale companies, but you'll really get to know your employees this way.
Contact Our Employee Survey Company
Are you ready to partner with an employee survey company that can recommend the best approach to collecting feedback from you team?
Contact Drive Research today!
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
