Driving Participation - overcoming the myths of culture survey fatigue.
We see this often, team participation dropping, leaders perceiving possible survey fatigue and we’d like to challenge that thinking.
Maybe it's not a survey fatigue problem. Maybe it's an action fatigue problem.
People don't necessarily get tired of being asked - they get tired of being asked and seeing nothing change, and of the emptiness behind "your voice matters to us”.
Participation is driven by whether employees believe their voice matters. And the sign that it matters is meaningful discussion, action and ultimately change.
Since our PQfactor journey began, we’ve received responses from 3,788 people who have also provided 24,068 comments. You can imagine how many times we hear “survey fatigue”.
Most culture surveys, at least ours, are designed to take two to four minutes to respond. We ask each question only three times a year, every four months, so your aggregate accounts for the environmental factors that come and go. Across a whole year an employee might spend 25 to 50 minutes giving feedback, roughly 0.03% of their working hours. This doesn’t suggest survey fatigue.
What does research say?
The most consistent theme is perceived inaction. McKinsey reviewed more than 20 academic articles and concluded that the strongest predictor of “fatigue” was employees’ belief, usually shaped by prior experience, that the organisation would not act on the results. Their prescription isn’t to survey less, but to be far more disciplined about communicating and acting on it, closing the loop.
So let me ask you this, particularly if you're working hard to take action, and we know many of our clients do. Is survey fatigue resulting from inaction? Or a hangover “belief” from prior experience of inaction?
We'd also like to stretch your thinking on two beliefs that quietly drive the problem. First, culture is not their problem, it sits with leadership as a responsibility. Second, the sense that the culture is now good enough. Expectations are either low or static, and teams treat culture as a project, do some work after that it will sustain itself. We guarantee you, it never does.
Before you accept survey fatigue as the explanation, check that the simpler causes have been dealt with.
Length Fatigue: It’s not too long and cumbersome that after 10 minutes any response will do and after 15, the distractions win before you hit submit.
Relevance Fatigue: People understand what you are asking and why, they are genuinely interested in what it means for them, and agree with you it matters, and can see it benefits them as much as the organisation.
Cadence fatigue: Research tells us people are happy to answer the same questions up to four times a year. There is no clear research on whether it is better to ask them all at once or to pulse it. We opt for a monthly pulse as it compensates for environmental factors and timing biases that skew your data. For example June, the busy end of the FY for some sectors, or January just after the holidays.
What comes next? What action can you take?
Message the importance of their feedback and the difference it's made so far - communicating regularly the changes the organisation, divisions and teams are making and how people are responding to these changes with the data.
Promote, and embed the mindset that culture is a shared accountability - how are those JD’s looking? What does onboarding look like? Do we regularly discuss this at our team huddles?
Consider having culture ambassadors through-out the organisation - those people that believe and understand wholeheartedly the importance of continuously putting effort into raising the bar on workplace culture.
Ask the team how they'd like to see the monthly results and how they'd like to have the conversation - get them behind the wheel with you.
Follow through on your team huddles and actions - close the loop before inviting more actions. Show people what you've heard, what you're doing about it and, importantly, what you aren't going to change and why.
Close the loop on not just team level actions, but show people what the organisation and the leadership team is working on as well.
Make measurement meaningful: Culture measurement shouldn't become an annual reporting exercise. The value comes from using data to create better conversations and focused actions.
Be the role model - are you doing the same for your leadership team? Are you responding every month?
Set the bar higher, invite a dialogue about the standards we want and what would it take to raise the bar. Culture is not a set and forget exercise
Most importantly be prepared to put in the hard yards and stay the course. The energy needed to improve workplace culture is akin to pursuing organisational purpose, infinite, not a task.
Speak to us about PQfactor and the difference we are making.
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