Survey strategies for frontline retail employees
The frontline workforce can be harder to survey than desk-based staff. They may work unpredictable shift patterns or lack the time or opportunities to sit in front of a computer and fill out a form. Many won’t even have a company email address to send a survey to. Follow these ten steps, and you’ll be able to build a survey program that works for your frontline employees:
1 Set your goals
What are you looking to get out of your survey program? Do you want to improve employee retention, or focus on delivering better customer service? Defined goals will allow you to build surveys that deliver more insightful results.
2 Choose a type of survey that meets your needs
Satisfaction surveys measure attitudes and perceptions. Culture surveys help ensure your employees’ views are aligned with your business. Engagement surveys monitor motivation and sense of purpose within your team.
3 Pick questions that serve your goals
Make sure that the answers you receive from your employees are relevant and will inform your decision-making. Gallup recommends a best practice range of questions for measuring employee engagement.
4 Plan your communications
You want to ensure that the survey process is as easy as possible for your teams. A good communications plan will inform managers and set clear guidelines, let your staff know about the survey, and ensure that they can find it and give their responses.
5 Set timelines for your survey, follow-up communications
A deadline will provide your team leaders with a clear goal to work towards in terms of survey engagement. Sharing a date for further discussion about the results can build enthusiasm in employees, demonstrating an intention to listen to their opinions and act on them.
6 Ensure accessibility to the survey
This can be difficult in deskless environments like retail, so plan ahead. Have team leaders build time into staff schedules. Relesys offers Survey PRO, a tool that puts your questions directly into your employees’ hands. Surveys can be filled out on workplace tablets or even personal devices.
7 Guarantee anonymity
This is vital if you want meaningful insights from your survey. Staff will only feel free to share their honest opinions when they know that negative responses won’t come back to haunt them. Surveys sent using Relesys are automatically anonymized, safeguarding your employees and giving you feedback you can trust.
8 Analyze results
If you’ve built your survey around your goal, you’ll have all the information you need to uncover important insights and valuable new ideas.
9 Create an action plan
Use your results to identify areas for improvement and inform actions that will deliver effective change within your business and meet the needs of your team. Democratize your response by involving stakeholders from across the organization, offering clear instructions and deadlines. This will ensure that your teams see change as soon as possible, and feel involved in its implementation.
10 Prepare your next survey cycle!
Retail never stands still, so whatever your goal is, an ongoing survey program is the key to maintaining an effective workforce and spotting trends so you can build upon your success.
Find your solution
Follow these ten steps and you’ll be on your way to uncovering valuable insights that will impact employee and customer satisfaction.
Explore Survey Pro from Relesys and discover a simple and adaptable tool for managing ongoing employee survey programs that can transform your business.
Want to learn more about how Relesys can help you deliver a successful survey program? Get in touch today.
