Hi rehaan,
Few days ago, there was also a professional who had asked for the same question. However, I'm detailing it right now for the use of both of you.
When it comes to employee satisfaction surveys, some issues are extremely important:
1. will the management be able to identify a particular respondent? If so, then the data collected will be absolutely null, because people will respond in an corporate-desirable fashion and will probably try to protect their image.
2. what drives people into providing useful info? Is there an incentive for people to tell you why they are satisfied/dissatisfied rather than just giving you the answer they believe you're expecting?
3. the way items are formulated. If the item is a sensitive topic and it's very obvious what the item is driving at, the answers may be biased.
4. do people see any use of filling in your survey? If they don't believe in any improvements the will be made as a result of their dissatisfaction,
In my experience an employee opinion survey collects the type of information the Executive Committee is expecting: "We're doing fine, people are happy, they do enjoy working for us."
Whereas if you opened a forum for online discussions with anonymous login, within the Company's intranet, add few sections like "Gossips", "Rumours", "Off the record info"... you will be able to see what people are really concerned with. This should give you a glimpse of the hidden agenda within the company.
On the other hand, Employee Satisfaction Surveys are effective tools if and only if the people taking part in them are assertive enough to outline their problem. But then again, you wouldn't really need a survey for that, they'd probably bring it up as soon as it occurs. Otherwise, in an organization where people are afraid to speak up for fear they will endanger their position, the information you collect via ESS is virtually zero.
Then again, this is my experience only, and I may be wrong...
Best,
Colin
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