Employee engagement and satisfaction surveys are integral tools for improving workforce demeanor, efforts, and production.
When properly implemented, a well-crafted engagement survey can give everyone a boost, from the most entry-level worker to the most veteran river rider. Satisfaction surveys can even lead to growing your outfit’s bottom line.
At Zebulon, we like to consolidate employee engagement surveys and satisfaction surveys into a single, non-intrusive, low-burden survey that does wonders for your outfit. Read on to explore how an engagement and satisfaction survey can strengthen your business, improve efficiency, reduce turnover, and increase employee output.
The Sweet Spot: What An Outfitter Needs and the Workforce Wants
Outfitters in 2024 struggle with finding a high-quality workforce, communicating effectively with their workers, and retaining crews from one season to the next. And, according to Randstad’s 2024 research, today’s workers’ top priorities include finding a healthy work-life balance, job security, and a pleasant work atmosphere.
So, how can someone make sure their workers’ top priorities are being fulfilled? … By asking them how fulfilled they are, of course.
And how can outfitters improve their communication with – and the retention of – their workforce? … By implementing engagement surveys as part of their seasonal “to-do” list.
Surveys are Your Roadmap to Improvements
Outfitting is historically averse to “touchy feely” subjects. Plus, outfitters don’t typically have the bandwidth to administer surveys during a busy summer season. Thus, it’s not surprising that most outfitters haven’t implemented employee surveys yet.
However, satisfaction surveys do so much more than just let people feel heard. If handled well, surveys require minimal administrative efforts during the busy season. Yet, they provide invaluable insights into the workforce on a more granular level. These insights can provide quick-to-fix solutions before retention problems rear their head, while also uncovering attractive perks that can be used to entice cream-of-the-crop talent next year.
Engagement surveys also provide a clear roadmap for internal improvements, serving as a Report Card for the business and essentially providing hard data on how well an outfit is setting up their employees for success.
Which Questions Should I Ask?
In this article, you won’t find a concrete list of questions you can copy and paste willy-nilly to employees. In fact, each outfitter should take some quality time to determine the best list of questions for their specific business.
If you haven’t read “First Break All The Rules” by Gallup yet, now’s a great time to do so. Gallup has a great lineup of questions, referred to as the Q12, and massive amounts of data backing up the importance of each question.
As you build your own question list, we recommend asking questions with concrete, pre-determined answers. (Rather than expecting respondents to compose unique or long responses to each individual question.) For example, questions that can be answered with “strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree” are ideal.
At the end of your survey, we recommend leaving one open-ended (optional) question, such as, “Is there anything else you’d like to share?” This provides an additional opportunity for further communication, without obligating anyone to elaborate if they’re not feeling it. This also allows respondents to bring up topics they feel are important which you might not have included in your questions.
Survey Best Practices
Here are some of our tried-and-true recommendations:
Less is more
Rather than asking dozens of questions about all areas of your business, brainstorm a short list of 6-12 questions that will provide you with the most impactful answers. The more questions you include, the lower your chances of having a 100% response rate.
By carefully selecting a small handful of the most important questions, you have a higher chance of securing buy-in from your entire workforce.
Keep it simple
Pare down the actual wording of your survey questions, so there’s no confusion about what you’re really asking. For example, a quick “I know what is expected of me at work” is easier to understand than a long and wordy “My supervisors and managers make their expectations of my daily duties very clear.”
(Pro Tip: “I know what is expected of me at work” is one of our go-to questions to include, because it covers a foundational aspect of every worker’s job!)
Give everyone a chance
If you send a survey to one team member, make sure to send it to every team member. If you issue a survey to one area of your business, make sure to issue it to all areas of your business.
The more data you can amass with your survey, the more powerful the results will be. Distribute it to everyone.
When we administer a survey for our clients, we like to use Google Forms. This allows us to add “Job Title” and “Department” toggles to segregate key areas and specific positions within the outfit. Doing so helps quickly identify strong and weak areas of your outfit that you might not otherwise be aware of.
Make a plan
Be intentional about issuing your survey and follow up on results. After all, a half-assed survey is a sure-fire way to decrease overall workforce satisfaction.
Set aside chunks of time, or better yet, preemptively schedule calendar reminders, to help you do the following:
- Build the survey and compose your questions
- Distribute it to everyone on your team
- Follow up to ensure everyone responds
- Analyze the results
- Craft & implement a plan for improvements based on the results
Sound overwhelming? It doesn’t have to be! In fact, all our Eddy members sent employee surveys this year, and you can too. Not sold yet? Just consider the downstream time savings and headaches reduced with a happier workforce.
Whatever you do, don’t ignore the results
This may be an unpopular hot take, but if you don’t have the bandwidth to follow up on the results of your survey in a timely manner, whether it be this season or next, then you shouldn’t be issuing the survey in the first place.
Your workers will be taking time out of their busy schedules to give honest answers and make suggestions for improvement. If they feel their responses went ignored, you can bet they’ll shrug off any future survey you attempt to issue down the road.
If you send an engagement survey to your team, be prepared to act on mission-critical responses this year and acknowledge less critical yet important future long-term changes.
The Question of Anonymity
Should satisfaction surveys be anonymous?
Some people argue that by allowing respondents to remain anonymous, you’ll get responses that are more honest. However, in outfitting, workforces exist in such close quarters and for such short periods of time, that keeping satisfaction surveys fully anonymous won’t do you any favors.
For example, if you collect names with your survey results, you’ll be able to quickly pinpoint those employees who you need to follow up with who haven’t completed the survey. And, if those employees who you follow up with don’t end up completing the survey at all, then that’s an inherent implication as to their satisfaction with your outfit. (Or perhaps their character as an employee!)
Our Meet-In-The-Middle Approach
At Zebulon, we like the “meet-in-the-middle” approach. We suggest providing an option for employees to leave their name. We also suggest including the question, “Would you like to review your answers with one of our outfit’s leaders?” This bridges the gap between the aforementioned pros and cons of anonymous responses. And, this provides an opportunity to authentically connect with your workforce, something highly valued by guides and employees in the industry (hint! hint!).
If someone answers they’re upset about something, and want to chat it over with a leader, you know exactly who to speak with first. If someone answers that they’re thrilled about a new initiative, or particularly invested in improving at something in future seasons, you know who to keep your eye on for potential promotions!
By collecting names with your surveys, you also open the door for contacting respondents down the road to learn more about future plans, market differentiators, and various initiatives. A side note: You should be marketing your outfit to your employees just as much as you do to your customer base. These tools help you do just that. But, that’s another article for another day …
Honesty is a Hard Pill to Swallow
Engagement surveys can feel a little like that time you passed a note to your primary school crush that read, “Do you like me? Yes or no.” By putting yourself out on a limb, you run the risk of receiving a negative response.
Although you surely do your best each year to create a welcoming and fun culture at your outfit, you may still receive some negative feedback on your survey. Regardless of whether this feedback is directly aimed at your leadership (or at your outfit’s culture, or anything else), it’s important to receive all feedback as objectively as possible.
Receiving constructive criticism in any form is a prime opportunity to analyze your own operations and make improvements for the better.
Don’t Just Take Our Word For It …
Engagement and satisfaction surveys are powerful tools that can transform your outfit into someplace that people clamor to return to year after year. By strategically measuring engagement at your outfit, you can build a more productive and successful business.
This article covers one of the core topics covered in our Eddy group, a non-competitive meeting space for growth-focused outfit owners and leaders. We spent multiple sessions reviewing our preferred satisfaction survey questions, and we shared detailed specifics of some of the Eddy members’ own survey initiatives and results.
If you own or lead an innovative and knowledge-hungry outfit, and would like to join our timely and relevant outfit accelerator by getting on retainer with us, reach out to us below. As one of our members recently put it, “The Eddy is a shining light in my week.” Why not make it a highlight of your week, too?
