11 ways to prevent fatigue resulting from employee surveys

Surveys are the most commonly used online engagement tool for finding how engaged employees are and getting valuable feedback from them.

In many organizations, they are the easiest and most popular way to gather employee feedback because they allow for a quick and easy collection of responses in easy-to-use survey forms.

A company that values and encourages a culture of feedback has sometimes run into the problem of employees getting tired of filling out surveys.

Employees feel appreciated when they are actively acknowledged and appropriately addressed. In this way, insightful feedback can be the fastest way to find out what your business does well and what it could do better.

However, all good things come with a cost. When it comes to employee surveys, people eventually get tired of them and lose interest.

The results will be distorted and inaccurate when there is increased survey fatigue. This post will give you a deep understanding of survey fatigue.

What sorts of employee survey fatigue exist?

The primary step in dealing with this problem is determining what kind of survey fatigue is prevalent in your organization. Survey fatigue may affect your workforce in one of the following ways:

1) Excessive surveying

This is the most evident form of "survey fatigue", which develops when you repeatedly ask your community to participate in surveys. Many businesses use surveys to get in touch with their employees, but it's essential to know when to use this method and not rely on it all the time.

2) Difficult-to-understand questions

This happens when your survey questions are too hard to understand or don't make sense to your employees. Employees will lose interest and start to zone out if you ask them to fill out such surveys.

3) Extensive fatigue owing to long surveys

Have you ever experienced anxiety after reading a survey form with a lengthy list of questions? Your employees may become exhausted due to answering an excessive number of questions; these surveys run the risk of covering too many unrelated feedback topics and producing less insightful results.

4) Fatigue from a lack of action

If employees take the time to fill out a survey but do not see any changes due to their feedback, they may believe that taking surveys is meaningless and that they are not being listened to, leading to a decrease in employee engagement. When it comes to an employee experience survey, this can be highly discouraging because it sends the message that the employee's opinion doesn't matter to the company.

The impact of the exhaustion caused by employee surveys

A decreased response rate

If an employee has had a bad experience with a survey or has stopped taking surveys regularly, they will be less likely to take surveys in the future.

Non-representative outcomes

Survey fatigue might impede the reliability of survey results. Employees' comments may become less useful and accurate when they lose interest in contributing.

Not able to take action

When there isn't enough accurate data to back up plans or decisions, it's harder to put employee feedback into action.

Lack of participation in changes

Since employees did not participate in employee surveys, they do not feel a sense of ownership or investment when changes are made.

Loss of Resources

When workers aren't engaged, survey research isn't as helpful and gives a low return on investment.

1. Thank your staff.

Your employees are busy yet care so much about their jobs, workplace, and coworkers that they take the time to submit feedback on their experiences. You should thank them just as if they had handed you their survey after a meeting.

This is extremely important because it shows how much you value their input and time. A simple "thank you" goes a long way toward getting feedback in the future and getting more people to join the next time they are asked to.

2. Establish connections between the results of surveys and the evolution of workplace culture.

Among all possible measures, this one has the most significant impact on eliminating survey boredom. Nothing makes people less likely to fill out surveys than the idea that nothing is done with the feedback they give.

What matters is not whether the management believes they are acting on this feedback but whether your employees believe they are. Make sure they know how the changes and new ways of doing things relate to what employees said in surveys.

3. Use sparingly.

Surveys should only be used when necessary. Surveys are not ideal for brainstorming, deliberation, or learning exercises. Consider alternative ways to interact with your people online and evaluate your current level of engagement.

4. Give a precise estimate of the survey's completion time.

Typically, surveys shouldn't last longer than 10 minutes. However, refrain from deceiving your respondents by suggesting they'll finish in fifteen minutes when they reach only halfway at the fifteen-minute mark. If the survey takes longer to complete than anticipated, a respondent may give up halfway through.

5. Survey design flaws.

Do your questions need more clarity? Do workers have trouble understanding the questions being asked? Does the logic of the survey not make sense? Do the questions jump from one subject to another? Your employees could be turned off by these and other signs of a poorly constructed survey.

6. Survey duration.

When running a survey, it can be tempting to get as much information as possible by asking as many questions as possible. Your questionnaire should only address the subjects that interest you. Consider getting demographic information from somewhere else, like HR records, to save your employees' time and get more accurate results.

7. Don't press for answers.

Permit them to skip questions at their discretion.

8. Make sure your questions are completely clear.

People probably won't fill out your surveys or give honest answers if your questions or answers confuse them.

9. When using scaled questions, be consistent.

Keep scales consistent to prevent confusion. For instance, if you decide to use a 5-point Likert scale, stick with it throughout. Refrain from combining scaled questions.

Using the examples below in a single-answer range

• Exceedingly satisfied
• Fairly satisfied
• Both unsatisfied and satisfied
• Fairly unsatisfied
• Exceedingly unsatisfied

The subsequent questions should then do the same.

10. Eliminate points of friction.

If you have yet to give it much thought, there might already be friction spots in your surveys, driving some respondents away and making them frustrated. Thankfully, there are a few things you should take into account that can lower your risk of incomplete surveys.

Consider including a time estimate at the beginning of your survey. Anything you can do to comfort them about this will benefit your survey completion rates because most people are discouraged from surveying if they think it would take them too long to complete.

Consider sectioning out your survey and using page numbers throughout. As respondents complete your survey, these visual cues give them a sense of progress. Similarly, if your survey has a progress bar, it will assist respondents in staying focused and interested and make them less likely to drop it because they will know exactly how much more they have to finish.

For those who don't have enough time to complete their survey in one sitting but would like to return and finish it later, providing a "save and continue" tool is fantastic.

11. Inform the respondents of the results.

Respondents are less inclined to complete another survey that vanishes into cyberspace if they never hear anything about earlier ones. For instance, when your department makes changes in the future, link the changes to the findings of a departmental survey.

Conclusion

Employee feedback is undoubtedly critical to improving company culture and increasing employee engagement. It would be best if you made taking surveys as seamless as possible to maintain high response and completion rates.

Using SnowHR's employee survey feature, you can collect relevant data and improve the employee experience over time.

Do you want to avoid survey fatigue? Get a SnowHR demo and learn how to increase response rates without overwhelming your employees.