Employees are happier when they feel their ideas and feedback are being heard, which is especially important in today’s labor market reset. The best way to hold onto top talent is to understand what your employees want – and the best way to do that is to ask them directly.

Employee surveys are a great tool that allows your team to be open and honest about their thoughts and concerns. Surveys can be used for numerous purposes, from driving company initiatives to understanding your organization’s weaknesses. While there are many benefits to conducting employee engagement surveys, they’re only as effective as the company administering them. It’s crucial to research and pick the best third-party provider for your organization. Here are four things to consider when looking for an outsourced solution to help you survey your employees.

Does the employee survey provider have the technical expertise to get the answers you need?

If you’re considering a survey, you want to learn specific information from your employees. However, you might not know the right questions you need to ask to obtain that information. Experts that are trained in survey development will be able to identify survey themes and formulate questions that will help you learn what you want (and need) to know.

Will the provider help develop a plan to communicate results and next steps?

Some employees have a negative view of surveys in the workplace because they feel nothing ever changes. With so much else going on, companies may forget to update employees on the findings and how things will change going forward. The ideal third-party survey administrator will help company leadership put together a plan to share results and next steps with employees.

Will your employees feel comfortable giving honest answers?

A survey serves no purpose if your employees don’t feel they can be open. Many employees fear retaliation if they share their true feelings with their employers. With an outside provider collecting and analyzing the data, employees can feel secure that their information will be kept confidential and anonymized.

Will you save time and resources?

Right now, many organizations are operating with a smaller staff, meaning employees are stepping into multiple roles to keep everything running. Developing and distributing a survey, collecting and analyzing the results, and creating initiatives based on those results require a lot of time and resources. An experienced administrator can dedicate the necessary time and focus to make sure the survey process supports and advances your strategic initiatives and goals.

RKL’s Human Capital Management team is experienced in all aspects of survey creation and distribution. Contact RKL’s Exton office at 484.874.2200 or complete the form on this page to start the conversation.

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Lauren Stricker is a Human Resources Consultant with RKL LLP, which has an office in the Exton Corporate Center. She is experienced in compensation and labor market analysis, job analysis, recruitment and selection tool development and validation, organizational and process analyses, as well as survey development, scoring and interpretation.