Checklist: Developing an Attitude Survey

In developing an attitude survey, be specific about what you want to find out. Asking too much makes it more complicated and costly to analyze survey results, but you should ask enough questions to get the answers you need to make decisions. Keep the following in mind:

• Get input from people who will need to use the survey results, even if an outside consultant is designing and conducting the survey.
• Many companies mail the surveys to employees' homes with a stamped return envelope. However, administering the survey on company time will show employees that you value their input and respect their leisure time. It may also enhance your return rate. You can conduct the survey using your company computer system, but you must do so in a way that ensures employee anonymity.
• Regardless of how the survey is conducted, confidentiality must be guaranteed.
• In many instances, when an outside organization develops the survey, employees will be more convinced of the company's sincerity if they see money being spent on the survey's administration and follow-up.
• Announcements of the survey should come in writing from the company's top officer about three or four weeks before the survey. The letter should emphasize that the survey will preserve the anonymity of the responder and indicate who will analyze the results.
• Don't include questions on things the company is unable or unwilling to change.
• Management must be prepared to make a thorough review of the results and make specific commitments.
• Communicating survey results to employees is best done in face-to-face meetings with employee groups and supplemented by dissemination of results in a newsletter or letter to employees.
• Follow-up is important. If one or two departments are particularly negative -- or unusually positive -- consider an additional survey and/or personal interviews with groups of randomly selected employees to find out what's going on.
• Surveys should be conducted annually, unless commitments from an earlier survey have yet to be fulfilled.

Reprinted with permission. © CCH