Developing an Employee Satisfaction Survey
Introduction Carrying out Employee Satisfaction Surveys has many benefits including the ability to measure the level of engagement and satisfaction of staff, to identify areas of strengths and best practices, as well as potential risks and opportunities for improvement, and to provide input for managers for performance improvement. Besides, the survey can also serve to inform organizations of training and development as well as career development needs of staff. When carried out consistently, results from Employee Satisfaction Surveys can serve as a benchmark for future progress tracking. Survey Design Questionnaire Design Framework In developing the survey questionnaire, reference can be made to Labaw’s Framework for Questionnaire Design (Labaw (1980) as cited in Gendall (1998)). Labaw’s framework is divided into three main layers relating to question design, question wording, and formatting or layout. All three layers should be looked at and considered holistically during the survey design process. The general principles presented by Labaw (1980) states that survey design is very much driven by the respondent’s orientation and defines the type of questions we can ask, words we can use, concepts we can explore, and the methodology we can use. It is important to craft questions by considering what the respondents can
