Employers need to continually put a finger on the pulse to gauge the standing of the work environment. Retailers, in particular, can use employee surveys to observe and improve their operation. Read on to find out just how they can pull this off.
For any employer, particularly retailers, being familiar with the goings-on and working conditions is an essential requirement. Suppose you don’t know what your employees are going through. In that case, you’ll never know which areas of your retail operation need improvement.
Even if your retail business is seemingly successful, there are always areas that you can improve to make that growth curve even steeper.
To figure out which areas are lacking, retailers can use employee surveys to engage their workers. This engagement, when done right, highlights all the blemishes on an otherwise seamless operation.
There are several ways in which an employer can take advantage of surveys to improve their business.
In this article, we go through the various methods retailers can use employee surveys to improve.
What steps can retailers follow to leverage surveys for improvement?
There are always policies and procedures, governed by the company culture, that keep the entire operation running smoothly. Nevertheless, there are still improvements to be made to ensure that the retail business is more successful.
Retailers can carry out employee surveys to identify areas where the policies and procedures fall short. Therefore, an employer needs to design surveys that are adept at coaxing employees to reveal any obstacles they have to circumvent when carrying out their duties.
We’ve compiled a list of steps you can follow to use surveys for your business’ benefit.
Set clear goals for the employee survey
Different surveys serve different purposes. Some surveys reveal employee satisfaction, whereas others gauge workers’ engagement with the overall organisation or their individual tasks. You can also carry out surveys to see if the corporate culture is ideal for productivity.
Therefore, before you pass out a survey, make sure you know the goal. This helps you craft the ideal questions to get the ideal insights. This is where the SMART goals principle comes in very handy.
Gauge your ability to process raw data before issuing the survey
Surveys usually contain quantitative questions whose answers are abstract numbers that need analysis to gain any insights from them. However, some employers find difficulties in making heads or tails of these numbers.
Therefore, ensure that you have effective analytical methods in place ready to make sense of the data you are going to collect before you issue the survey to your employees.
Ask relevant questions
Now that you have set the purpose of the survey, you need to ensure that you ask questions relevant to that field. Additionally, questions should cover all the bases. By this, we mean that you should craft your questions in a way elicits as much information as possible.
Add questions that require specific answers. However, these quantitative queries don’t provide complete information as would like it. Therefore, you need to include qualitative questions that allow the respondent to give more details in descriptive form.
Keep the survey short and simple
A significant hurdle to using surveys for improvement is unresponsiveness from employees. To gain a comprehensive picture, you need to ensure that you get as much engagement as possible from the respondents.
One of the best ways to improve engagement is by keeping the survey short and simple. Employees won’t see it as another imposing task but rather something that they can fill out quickly and get back to their routine. The less invasive the survey is on their time, the better for all parties.
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Stress anonymity to the respondents
Retailers can use employee surveys for the improvement of their business if they get all their workers to participate. However, employees can abstain from taking part in the survey if they fear that there will be retribution for some of their honest assessment of things on ground.
As an employer, the onus is upon you to stress to the employees that all their submissions will be anonymous. With this in place, they will open up more and give you a clearer picture of the work environment.
You can then use these insights to make informed decisions to improve your workplace.
Allow for ample time to answer the survey
We get it. You want to get that feedback as soon as possible. However, you shouldn’t push your employees to fill out the survey quickly. Not only do you run the risk of getting hurried, dishonest answers, but you will also significantly reduce the number of submissions.
Give your employees sufficient time to answer the questions. When they do so on their own time, they give the survey adequate attention. Consequently, this gives you the representative insights that you need to boost the success of your retail business.
Communicate all aspects of the survey at all times
Before sending out a survey, employers need to let employees know all about it. The announcement carries more weight when it comes from top management. Employees are more likely to take it seriously and make it a priority.
The message should contain the survey’s purpose, length, the deadline for submission and assurances of confidentiality. It should also emphasise privacy and the security of any identifying personal data collected.
Additionally, you should inform employees of the results of the survey and the changes that you are going to put into effect.
In Summary
Retailers have a lot to gain from conducting employee surveys on a regular basis. In such an industry that is heavily influenced by customer service, these surveys can help to reveal the shortcomings in their operation.
The surveys unearth any underlying issues, allowing you to address them and improve the work environment and, in turn, the quality of customer service delivered.
Survey results shouldn’t be swept under the rug but put to use to implement changes. Furthermore, employees should be kept in the loop throughout the entire process. QR-code-based rewards could be given to the respondents. It’s easy to generate a QR code using a QR code generator.
