HR Should Drive An Employee Survey, But The Learnings Are For The Leadership Team
As crazy as it might seem, a Florida car salesman recently asked a customer sitting in front of him to prove she wasn’t a robot.
He handed Marci Robin of Allure Magazine a printed sheet from his website that featured a CAPTCHA form and asked her to place a tick in the box to prove she wasn’t a robot.
Robin told the Jalopnik website she was dumbstruck when the sales agent handed her the piece of paper.
“There was nothing else on the print-out, just the Captcha box,” she said. “It even said ‘Submit’ under it.
“My husband and I were like, ‘Wait, what?’ We just looked at each other and laughed. The sales guy seemed unfazed, like this was a 100% normal thing to ask a person sitting in front of you to do.”
While this is an extreme example, many companies do things like this, asking certain departments to carry out annual surveys just so the boxes can be ticked.
This is particularly the case with employee engagement surveys. HR departments send out the surveys, employees fill them in and dutifully send them back. The HR department compiles the results and vows to do something about ‘employee engagement’ but nothing really changes.
That’s often because the employee engagement survey is perceived to be the responsibility of the HR department rather than the Board of Directors and the rest of senior management. But to be useful, employee engagement surveys must be sponsored by the Board and senior managers, according to Mike Turner, the Managing Director of You Become, a leading employee engagement expert for UK companies.
“They must take a full interest and engage in the results of the surveys,” he says in his video.
If senior managers and Board members perceive it to be yet another ‘tick box’ exercise and the sole responsibility of the HR department, they’re unlikely to commit to making changes based on the survey results. That would render the survey a complete waste of time and resources.
“HR are there to facilitate it, but they can’t really act because ultimately, the responsibility for people isn’t just with HR, it’s with every leader and manager,” Mike says. HR can initiate and move the survey process along, but they can’t be responsible for how people feel.
If you need help or would like to discuss any issue that this video series raises, please call a member of our team on 01932 888489 now. You Become is a leader in employee engagement and organisational culture for ambitious UK companies.
