{"id":1147,"date":"2009-12-03T01:00:39","date_gmt":"2009-12-03T09:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1147"},"modified":"2009-11-16T21:16:41","modified_gmt":"2009-11-17T05:16:41","slug":"survey-design-101-%e2%80%93-part-1-what-to-ask-and-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1147","title":{"rendered":"Survey Design 101 \u2013 Part 1: What to Ask and How"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest Author:\u00a0 Stephen B. Jeong, Ph.D.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>It\u2019s time for that annual \u201call-hands\u201d annual employee survey!\u00a0 You\u2019re charged with going to your employees and asking \u201chow are we (as a company) doing?\u201d Putting together a set of survey questions may seem fairly intuitive \u2013 and it is… for the most part.\u00a0 However, there are at least a couple of key things to consider to ensure that you maximize the interpretive value (i.e., the amount of value given to the collected information) of your data.\u00a0 I discuss two broad considerations below designed to help you create an employee survey that is both comprehensive in its coverage and that will help with later interpretation \u2013 or what measurement experts call \u201cpsychometric soundness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Survey Content: <\/strong><\/p>\n

Occasionally, I run into people who believe that their employees need to be happy about everything. This type of idealistic thinking is not only unrealistic, but can lead to blurring or watering-down of those aspects that are critical for an organization\u2019s survival.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s consider two drastically different types of training for two types of athletes \u2013 a long-distance runner and a sprinter. Long-distance runners train to develop their slow-twitch muscles which are designed for repeated contraction over a long period of time. Sprinters, on the other hand, train to develop their fast-twitch muscles designed for power and speed.<\/p>\n

While the above analogy may seem dramatic, depending on their competitive landscape, organizations also differ in their need to emphasize one competency more so than another \u2013 e.g., training over diversity; efficiency over transparency. One key to creating a \u201ccomprehensive\u201d employee survey thus lies, not in including all possible topics\/issues in existence; rather with your organization\u2019s goals and its strategic plan to achieve them. From this perspective, an organization\u2019s strategic plan should be used as a guide for developing its survey content.<\/p>\n

Developing High Quality Survey Questions:\u00a0 As you will see below, creating survey questions is straightforward for the most part. However, there are some basic rules that one should follow in order to avoid confusion \u2013 both for employees and during the data analysis phase. Here\u2019s a partial list of considerations.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Choosing the right number of scale-points:\u00a0 The most popular scale in use today is the Likert-type scale with 5-point response options \u2013 ranging from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree.\u00a0 Extensive research on the reliability of 5-, 7-, and 9-point scales has shown consistently that 5- and 7-point scales are more valid than 9- or 10-point scales (per Jon Krosnick\u2019s research).<\/li>\n
  2. Keep it simple:\u00a0 Be sure to use language that your audience can understand. This ensures that your questions will be understood by most, if not all, of your employees.<\/li>\n
  3. Keep it short:\u00a0 Use as few words as possible for each question by omitting unnecessary words. This helps to minimize not only comprehension time but also misinterpretations.<\/li>\n
  4. Keep it specific and actionable: One objective of surveys is to create action plans designed to address identified issues. Survey questions can facilitate this process by being both specific and actionable \u2013 i.e., I have received sufficient training to perform my job duties effectively.<\/li>\n
  5. Avoid double-barreled questions: While many of you know this, they still exist. Survey questions should address one topic at a time to avoid confusion during analysis.<\/li>\n
  6. Open-ended \u201cqualitative\u201d questions: These questions provide helpful insight into some of the issues identified via the quantitative portion of the survey. Due to the time involved for analysis, these should be limited to one or two at most. Furthermore, because the responses to these questions are typically voluntary, they tend to be anecdotal and less reliable than the quantitative data. Hence, one must be careful not to give these more weight than they deserve.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In sum, there are many more challenging things that confront today\u2019s HR\/OD professional than creating an employee survey.\u00a0 However, it is just as easy to create a survey that provides little or no insight into how employees actually feel about an organization. While the above points admittedly do not capture the myriad of issues that can arise, they should provide a good starting point for those new to employee surveys.<\/p>\n

    Stephen B. Jeong, is currently the Managing Director of Waypoint People Solutions – www.waypointps.com<\/a>, a human capital consulting firm that focuses on high precision employee diagnostic surveys using cutting-edge measurement technology and methodologies. He holds Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational psychology from the Ohio State University and has been advising private, public, and government organizations since 2000.\u00a0 He can be reached at stephen.jeong@waypointps.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Guest Author:\u00a0 Stephen B. Jeong, Ph.D. It\u2019s time for that annual \u201call-hands\u201d annual employee survey!\u00a0 You\u2019re charged with going to your employees and asking \u201chow are we (as a company) doing?\u201d Putting together a set of survey questions may seem…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engagement","category-strategies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1147"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1156,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147\/revisions\/1156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}