Employee Survey Distribution

Employee Survey Distribution

In 2023, industries like retail personnel, healthcare staff like nurses, field construction workers, plant floor employees, and public transportation service staff are just a few examples of non-desk employees—workers who don’t work behind a desk. As mentioned in Forbes, non-desk employees make up about 80% of the global workforce and their turnover rates are much higher than traditional desk and office personnel. Highlighted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2021, the food industry had a turnover rate of nearly 87% while the rate for the retail industry sat just under 65%. Unfortunately, these percentages will only continue to increase the longer deskless employees go unnoticed. Non-desk workers are constantly being overlooked without a second thought. While employee turnover is occasionally hard to avoid, decreasing its frequency is the key to a successful business that values positive relationships with all of its workers—deskless and otherwise. Communication doesn’t always come naturally, which makes tools like questionnaires and surveys a great method for hearing out your employees’ compliments and concerns. If your company struggles to reach your out-of-office staff members, Yourco is a survey distribution service that makes it easy to administer employee surveys with fewer troubles! If you’re wondering how to distribute a survey online while increasing quality communication and lowering turnover rates for non-desk workers, let’s delve deeper into the how and why of it all.

What Is an Employee Survey?

An employee survey is a tool in questionnaire form that many companies use to measure the satisfaction, commitment, engagement, and experience of their corresponding workers. These forms, whether digital or physical, consist of many employee survey questions that give the workers an opportunity to share their opinions, feelings, thoughts, and concerns with the business. Used for internal communication, employee surveys can allow the company to keep up with staff members and potentially make any necessary changes depending on the sorts of responses they receive from their employees.

Overtime, employee surveys evolved from simply addressing satisfaction alone to accounting for experience, engagement, and commitment. While the four segments can go hand-in-hand, they each represent something distinctly specific.

Employee Satisfaction

The earliest form of employee surveys revolved around the idea of measuring the satisfaction of workers. Simply put, staff members of a company had a space to give their opinions on the job they were performing or the business that employed them as a whole. These questionnaires could lean entirely negative or positive or land somewhere in between. Ultimately, it provided leadership with straightforward answers about the company’s success and growth. On the flip side, job satisfaction surveys weren’t really the best tool for measuring the overall performance of the organization.

Employee Commitment

As many companies’ human resources (HR) departments began to tweak satisfaction surveys to better fit and predict the performance of the business, employee commitment surveys entered the ring. Spoiler alert, these surveys weren’t that great at predicting an organization’s performance either, but they were perfect for calculating the frequency of employee turnover! Why weren’t commitment questionnaires a sufficient way to predict turnover? Staff members could fill out these surveys, expressing how content they are with their position and their duties, but that also left room for the risk of them not necessarily being all that hardworking or sufficient at their job.

Employee Engagement

In the continued attempts to administer surveys that would provide proper predictions of a company’s performance, employee engagement or involvement started to take the spotlight. These questionnaires tried to focus more on measuring how attached (or detached) a worker was from the organization. It also put emphasis on discussing an employee’s desire and determination to help the company thrive. Employee engagement surveys were the first major step in businesses predicting performance definitively.

Employee Experience

As many companies continue to expand on engagement, employee experience surveys grab a hold of the baton to the finish line. You could look at experience surveys as kind of a loop around back to satisfaction while taking into consideration how motivated and prepared an employee actually is overall. These surveys highlight the touchpoints and pain points for workers and their relationships with their employers. Many organizations will view employee engagement as the product of employee experience. In essence, if your workers are having a positive experience, engagement levels will increase. If employees are having a negative experience overall, however, engagement levels could plummet and cost the business more than they can sacrifice.

Unfortunately, non-desk workers can account for a fair portion of employees who don’t always have a positive experience under a company. This obstacle is usually a result of very little communication merged with lack of easy access to the surveys a business sends out. So, what does employee survey distribution actually look like?

What Does It Mean to Distribute a Survey?

An organization distributes or administers an employee survey by sending it out either physically or digitally to all of its workers in some manner. Creating the questionnaire is just one small step in the grand scheme of things. Once you finish drafting all the necessary questions, how do you plan to share the forms with your many employees? Have you taken into consideration the workers who don’t traditionally do their tasks in an office space or at a desk? Yourco can help you solve these lingering issues and many more with their survey distribution platform! Serving small businesses and Fortune 500 enterprises alike, there’s one key reason out of many that should sway your company to Yourco—improved internal communication!

Many non-desk workers struggle to obtain and complete employee surveys sent out by their respective companies simply because equal accessibility is often thrown on the backburner by businesses. Without the participation of non-desk employees, the surveys only account for a portion of staff members rather than all. This issue further compromises how accurately the surveys can predict the future success or shortcomings of an organization.

When you limit any amount of your workers’ ability to participate in company-wide activities, high-quality communication will be the first to fall. Employees that feel left out or undervalued are more likely to leave their position at your company altogether. However, understanding what it means to distribute a survey is nothing more than the gateway to learning how employee surveys are distributed. Let’s dive into some of those key methods next!

What are the Different Methods of Survey Distribution?

Emailing, integrating through your website, sharing via social media, providing digital or physical quick response (QR) codes, and texting are the most common methods used for employee survey distribution. At one point, most of these methods had their fair share of benefits, but not without some disadvantages. After we dive into the various manners, we’ll highlight which method works best for non-desk employees with minimal hassle and maximal efficiency and accessibility!

Email

One of the most popularized survey distribution methods is email. For many companies, emailing the questionnaire once the survey creation process is complete seems like the ideal option. While this method works for both external and internal communication of a business, it leaves non-desk workers out of the equation almost entirely. Non-desk workers are usually carrying out job duties in a setting where a desktop is not easy to access or use.

Emails are accessible via cellphone, but surveys sent through an email inbox are typically calibrated for a desktop and are not as mobile-friendly as a consequence. An employee working away from the desk or office will understandably have a hard time filling out a survey on their cellphone when the form is made for a computer. As a result, they will most likely opt out, scrapping their endlessly valuable input. Moreover, messages sent over email utilize data, and non-desk employees may not pay for unlimited data plans or have internet access.

Not to mention, employees (both in and out of the office), may receive tons of emails in a single day. If you plan on sending out your survey through an email, there’s a good chance it’ll get lost in the stack of messages your employees get regularly which leads to an extremely low open rate. Many companies don’t provide their non-desk workers a company email, rendering this method useless to them.

Physical and Digital QR Codes

Much like the acronym implies, QR codes are supposed to be a quick way to access and respond to a specific link. Appearing in both print and digital forms, a QR code opens through the camera function on a smart device. Technically, you could attempt to make this method work in a non-office setting where your workers aren’t sitting at desks to fulfill tasks. Printing out a QR code multiple times and posting those papers throughout a deskless environment could potentially give non-desk workers access.

However, QR codes are a lot trickier than they like to seem. If you planned on sharing copies of a survey embedded in a QR code, you would also have to provide easy-to-follow instructions on how to access the questionnaire with it. This would also mean keeping your fingers crossed that the instructions provided make sense and don’t take up too much of your workers’ time to read through.

Social Media

Sharing information through apps like Instagram or Twitter is one of the newer ways to send out surveys to your employees. With social media, you can draft and post links and other important details while allowing your survey to reach both your workers and your audience. While social media is seemingly accessible to everyone, you would have to hope that all of your employees have accounts they can login to. Otherwise, opening a survey through social media doesn’t guarantee that you’ll reach everyone within your business. In most workplace settings with non-desk staff, the employees typically do not follow their company on social media.

Website Integration

Implementing the employee survey on your company’s website is another notable distribution method that many companies utilize. Embedding your questionnaire within the landing page could work, but this is usually an external affair reserved for your customers. It’s not likely that workers will fill out an employee survey built into a website that is really meant to target the audience rather than the staff.

Texting

Implementing the employee survey on your company’s website is another notable distribution method that many companies utilize. Embedding your questionnaire within the landing page could work, but this is usually an external affair reserved for your customers. It’s not likely that workers will fill out an employee survey built into a website that is really meant to target the audience rather than the staff.

Pulse Survey vs Engagement Survey

An employee pulse survey is shorter in format, typically taking about five minutes to complete while engagement surveys can be a bit more in-depth, highlighting the value of employees to improve retention within a company using longer form questions and corresponding answers. While the length and intentions of these two surveys showcase their main differences, let’s consider some of the other reasons they exist separately:

Pulse Surveys:

• Offer very frequent check-ins
• Occurs weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly
• Are usually no longer than ten minutes
• Gain accurate insights of your workers’ feelings
• Highlights the company’s organization and communication trends

Engagement surveys:

• Offer more in-depth responses from employees
• Occurs quarterly or annually
• Are longer in format
• Gain specific insights on culture, organization, values, conditions, etc.
• Highlights the company’s areas that need improvement

What are the Best Times To Survey Employees?

Given that there are so many different types of surveys you could distribute to employees, their ideal timeframes may vary as well. As you create and plan to distribute your questionnaires you might ask yourself “how often should employee surveys be done?”

Oftentimes, you may hear “quarterly employee engagement survey” because many companies find that questionnaires focusing on engagement are best when administered each business quarter. On the other hand, a pulse survey would most likely occur much more frequently, depending on the nature of the business. Some companies might distribute them weekly, others may send them out once a month.

Onboarding surveys are usually sent out to new hires at the beginning of their employment followed by training surveys to get onboarded workers accustomed to standard company practices. Exit interview surveys, however, would go out to employees who are leaving which self-explanatorily occurs at the end of their employment. Likewise, annual reviews are surveys conducted and administered once a year! Engagement surveys are often grouped into the annual category as well if not grouped into the quarterly category.

Overall, it really depends on the intention of the survey and the results or responses your company is looking to receive from them once all employees complete them.

Why Do We Distribute Surveys?

Asking employees to take a survey allows you to track and predict the future success of a company and all of its internal affairs. With that being said, it can be difficult to ensure that all employees are included in this process. Non-desk workers, more often than not, are treated as an afterthought when considering communication with the higher-ups of a business. This recurring issue causes many companies to slip down a rabbit hole of endless problems with very costly solutions (or simply no permanent solutions at all). Let’s dive into some of the consequences setting back businesses that don’t properly value communication and engagement with all of their employees equally.

Higher turnover rate:

Turnover can happen regardless, but there are ways to lower the chances of it. Without effective communication, your company risks losing current employees much faster than they can hire new ones. The pressures of not being able to retain workers leads companies into hastily re-filling those sudden job openings, costing them extra time, money, and resources that may not be available. Non-desk employees are most likely to experience a lack of satisfaction due to little communication or access to easy communication tools.

Lower employee performance:

If your employees feel like the leadership team is out of reach, it can affect their ability to do good work. Task instructions may get lost in translation and workers will struggle to meet the company’s expectations. For example, if a non-desk employee is assigned a project but needs quick confirmation in regard to the job, they don’t have easy access to a computer at a desk to contact management for a speedy response. This could lead to the worker rushing to complete their task, sacrificing quality, or not completing the work altogether.

Higher levels of stress:

Ultimately, an employee is more likely to feel a sense of anxiety if they don’t have all of the necessary information and direction they need to do their job effectively. You can also look at it as a domino effect. Anxious employees could lead to anxious management which leads to unsatisfied customers, lowering the value and future development of the business overall.

How Do You Distribute a Survey Questionnaire Online?

Once you’ve spent some time establishing your objectives and drafted a list of questions to ask, you’ll need to distribute the survey to your employees while collecting and analyzing the responses you receive before considering any next steps in your business. So, how do you administer an online questionnaire? Let’s briefly break down the main steps you should take when distributing an employee questionnaire online.

Set your business objectives:

Before you can start drafting survey questions for your many employees, you need to establish a set of goals. Why are you making this survey and how does it benefit both your company and your staff? These are just a couple of the questions to consider when laying out your intentions.

Make a questions list:

After setting aside some business goals, start crafting a list of questions you believe to be important for employees to answer. These questions can highlight anything from overall satisfaction and experience to engagement and commitment.

Distribute the survey with Yourco:

While there are tons of survey distribution platforms out there, Yourco is one of the few that works to include and serve non-desk employees who are often forgotten in the survey creation and distribution processes. Yourco allows you to schedule and automate text messages for deskless workers to open and respond to at any point in the day from anywhere within their flexible worksite.

Collect and analyze the responses:

Once your employees’ completed surveys begin pouring in, start collecting and analyzing their answers and the overall results. These results could include how many workers actually finished the survey, how many responded positively, how many responded negatively, etc.

Reflect and adjust accordingly:

Your workers’ responses should help you measure where your company stands altogether. If most employees (both in and out of the main headquarters) responded positively, it wouldn’t make sense to change your current processes. However, overwhelmingly negative or neutral responses would warrant some level of adjustment in internal affairs such as better communication, higher satisfaction, dedicated culture, etc.

What Can Be Used as a Platform for Distributing Your Survey?

The survey distribution platform to pick is undoubtedly Yourco! Distributing surveys that include and value your non-desk employees could not get any easier. Yourco offers a unique survey distribution platform that highlights the power of text messaging as a form of internal communication for your company. Most other survey distribution platforms do not account for a company’s non-desk workers, leaving far too much room for inaccuracy in employee satisfaction and engagement results.

What are the Participation Rates for Employee Surveys?

While response rates may be fruitful within a company of mostly, if not all, desk-bound employees, the exact opposite is true for workers who don’t spend time completing tasks in an office or desk workspace. If your non-desk workers can’t easily access the surveys you’re attempting to distribute, they’re less likely to participate at all.

Thankfully, Yourco’s platform provides a great solution for the improvement of participation rates amongst non-desk workers by:

• Reaching them where they have access…their text messages
• Scheduling automated text messages
• Texting a specific number of employees within certain shifts
• Automating communication surrounding special events
• Sending reminders about open enrollment, policy, and benefits
• Sharing altered policies or other important company information
• Offering options to cancel or edit messages
• Providing flexibility to workers without cellular data plans or coverage
• Allowing employees to text back directly with options to add attachments
• Securing information by requiring an employee SMS login before viewing private company files
• Setting birthdays and company holidays

Plus, Yourco’s services don’t start and end with this list alone! For more information and a visual representation of the platform, check out our detailed demo!

Can Employee Surveys Be Mandatory?

Employee surveys are not typically mandatory and are often anonymous as well, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). On the contrary, there are some cases of surveys being a requirement for management and employees based on the nature of the survey as well as the local and state government employers. With that being said, many non-desk workers will continue to disregard a questionnaire if it’s simply too challenging or time-consuming to access without a computer in reach. Finding an inclusive and adaptable survey distribution platform is a crucial part of ensuring that your employees working away from traditional office spaces can access and answer the questions with little to no trouble at all.

Yourco: The All-Inclusive Survey Distribution Platform

Non-desk employees are the backbone for many companies spanning across tons of industries. Not only is it unfair to overlook them, it’s incredibly counterintuitive and could cost your business more than it can afford long term! If you’re ready to serve and value your deskless workers, consider using Yourco to distribute the surveys you want your employees to complete. Good communication is the key component to any thriving organization and Yourco is one of the few distribution platforms that keeps all workers (in and out of the office) in mind. To learn even more about Yourco’s services, sign up for a demo today!