Although I’m a huge believer in and user of research, I don’t consider myself an expert.  But for years, I’ve been bugged by the feeling that most of the employee surveys conducted by large companies is fairly useless.  It often seemed to me that these big annual surveys asked the wrong questions, or asked them in a way that didn’t provide any valuable information.  In my experience, these surveys were “owned” by the HR department, purchased from large consulting companies, and there was huge resistance to modifying the survey.  No one particularly liked the survey, as far as I could see the knowledge gained did not lead to any actions, and I didn’t see the point.  But since HR was driving it, and since I’m not a research expert, I generally stayed out of it.

This week while attending the IABC UK chapter’s holiday gathering I met someone who is an expert on research, and he confirmed my suspicions.  In fact, he’s written a book on the subject.  IABC member Peter Hutton is Managing Director of Brand Energy Research, and he gave me a copy of his new book, “What Are Your Staff Trying to Tell You?”  In it, Peter examines what’s wrong with the leading employee surveys (he takes on Gallup and Best Companies) and why they’re flawed, and explains why many of the measures of “employee engagement” are misleading and unreliable.  Best of all, he tells all this in ways that a non-expert can understand it, and in just 160 pages.  Armed with this, I think I’d have the courage to take on HR and insist on taking an active role in developing more meaningful research. 

Anybody else out there have positive or negative feelings about your company’s employee surveys? Do you think they provide useful information to management? Do they help inform your internal communication strategies? Are they asking the right questions, in the right way?