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Government agency dramatically increases employee survey participation rate through structured communication plan
As part of its ongoing efforts to improve workforce performance, a government agency with over 700 employees (500 administrative and 200 union) hired Gantz Wiley Research to conduct an employee survey program that would continue on an annual basis. The agency also wanted to benchmark its survey results with similar organizations to help it identify areas of strength and areas for improvement relative to other organizations.
Gantz Wiley Research teamed with the agency to create a tailored survey instrument. Starting with Gantz Wiley Research's CultureScan survey as the core instrument, items were added and removed based of the organization’s needs. Topics of particular importance to the agency included the organization’s mission, management communication, diversity, work/life balance, supervision, and rewards and recognition. The survey was administered via the web to all 700 union and non-union employees.
The survey participation rate was 78%, which much higher than previous administrations that yielded 30-40% completion. The high participation was due primarily to a well planned and executed communications plan that included significant support from the agency’s senior leadership group. Based on input from Gantz Wiley Research, the communication strategy included:
- Sending email invitations announcing the survey was coming and why.
- Communicating the employee survey process to the management team.
- Creating a PowerPoint presentation that outlined survey details and delivering it to staff meetings.
- Publishing an article announcing the survey was coming in the monthly newsletter.
- Creating posters announcing survey administration dates.
- Creating a computer pop-up of the poster mentioned above that appeared on people's desktops when they logged on in the morning. The pop-up appeared twice during survey administration.
- Sending email reminders throughout the survey administration period.
- Keeping the Directors informed of their Division's response rates.
Following presentations to both the Executive Director’s team and their direct reports, the agency developed action plans and began to implement them.
At the 90-day point in their action phase, the agency has made significant progress including:
- Making changes to their total rewards program.
- Creating more opportunities to recognize both short- and long-term contributions to success.
- Senior leadership meeting with staff more regularly to create more familiarity and openness.
The agency plans to repeat their employee survey on an annual basis to measure progress.
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