Employee survey. And then what? Why most results end up in the cupboard

In every survey project there is a moment that decides whether it has an effect. It does not lie at the evaluation. It lies before the first questionnaire, at the question: what do we do if the results are unpleasant?

Most companies do not ask this question. They commission the survey because it is time for one, because the group demands it, because the certificate requires it. There is a budget for the data collection and none for the consequences. There is a date for the presentation and none for the action plan. And there is nobody who is personally responsible for turning a red field into a green one.

When the results then arrive, and they almost always arrive with at least one unpleasant finding, the structure to absorb them is missing. The executive board spends a meeting discussing whether the question was worded correctly. The department heads defend themselves. HR writes a report. And the workforce, who took the time to give honest answers, waits. And waits. And draws its own conclusions.

In my experience it is almost always the same patterns:

• Asked too broadly. A questionnaire with many dozens of questions about everything, from the canteen to strategy, delivers a landscape but no path. Everything is a bit amber. Nobody knows where to start.
• Evaluated too high up. The results are shown at plant level or company level. A shift leader sees the average of twelve departments and does not recognise his team in it. What does not concern him, he does not change.
• No place for the conversation. The circular email with the result is no substitute for a conversation. People want to know what their feedback triggered, and they want to hear it from their manager, not from the intranet.
• No link to everyday work. The actions sit in a separate plan that runs alongside daily business and is crowded out by daily business. What does not appear in the shopfloor meeting, the department round or the target system no longer exists after a few weeks.

A mid-sized machine builder had a survey with high participation and a clear finding: the collaboration between production planning and manufacturing was named as the biggest problem in both areas. The executive board took note, nodded, and tasked HR with an action plan. The plan contained a communication training course. The training took place. The interface stayed as it was, because the problem was not a communication problem but a process problem: unclear approvals and a planning horizon that did not fit manufacturing. The survey had pointed to the place. Nobody had gone there.

When I prepare a survey with an executive board, we work first on the afterwards. Only once that stands do we talk about questions.

That begins with an honest self-check: are we prepared to hear unpleasant results and respond to them? If the answer is no, drop the survey. A survey without consequences costs more trust than no survey at all.

Then we define who does what after the evaluation. Every manager who receives results for their area also receives the task of discussing them with their team and deriving a few concrete actions from them. HR does not make the plan. The manager makes it, with their people. HR supports, facilitates, follows up. This clarification of roles is the difference between a survey that ends up in the cupboard and one that ends up in the department.

And we set the dates for the follow-up before the first questionnaire is sent: when the results will be in, when the team conversations will be completed, when the first status of actions will stand, when the workforce will get feedback. Whoever does not schedule that in advance never schedules it.

A survey that is meant to move something is short. It asks about what the company really wants to know right now and what it can act on. If you want to know whether your managers take their people with them, ask that, in several facets, and leave out the canteen.

Two additions have proved themselves. First, open fields with a clear question: "What would have to change in your area for you to work better?" The answers are often more concrete than any scale and show immediately where the lever lies. Second, evaluation down to the level at which people are led. If a team is small and anonymity could no longer be guaranteed, you combine it with the neighbouring team. But the level has to be as close as possible to the manager who is supposed to act.

And one more thing: write into the questionnaire what happens afterwards. A sentence like "Your manager will discuss the results for your area with you" changes how honestly people answer. They are not answering into a void. They are answering someone.

The most important appointment in the whole approach is one hour in every department, in which the manager shows the results for their area and discusses them with the team. Does not defend. Discusses.

I prepare managers for this conversation because it is harder than it sounds. They see a red field at "My manager gives me regular feedback" and have to stand in front of it and ask: "What do you mean by that? What would be different if it were green?" That takes attitude. Whoever explains in this conversation why the rating is unfair has lost it.

Out of the conversation come two or three things the team can change itself, and one or two things that have to go upwards because the department cannot solve them alone. Both are written down, visibly, on the board or in the department round. And both get a name and a date. From here on, the survey is no longer a project. It is part of leadership work.

The executive board has three tasks in this approach, and none of them is the presentation.

First, solve the things that come up from below. If the same interface is reported as a problem from several departments, that is a task for the executive board, not for the departments. It has to be worked on visibly, with a result that is reported back to the workforce.

Second, demand the follow-up. In the management rounds the executive board asks about the status of actions, just as it asks about delivery reliability and scrap. What is not asked about does not get worked on.

Third, report back. A few months after the survey, a short, honest account to everyone: this is what we heard, this is what we changed, this is still open and why. This feedback is the reason the next survey gets more participation instead of less. People answer honestly where answers have consequences.