Implementing Employee Surveys

Continuing from my last post on QR/Tablet survey fraud in retail, here’s what helped us validate real feedback. (Link to Post #1 in the comments 👇) The moment we stopped chasing high NPS and started chasing truth, things changed. But we didn’t just rely on gut instinct. Here’s what helped us catch fraud and bring the customer voice back: 1. We added a simple consent checkbox in the survey: "Would you like to leave your number so we can follow up?" 2. Most real customers gladly shared their number, especially those who had a genuine issue or positive experience. 3. Each week, we randomly called 4–5 customers per store. That alone was enough to: A. Detect fake responses B. Hear stories we would’ve otherwise missed C. Build trust by following up Surveys aren’t just about data. They’re about people. If you’re collecting feedback but never validating it, you’re flying blind. #RetailCX #CustomerFeedback #VoC #NPS #CustomerExperience #RetailSurveys #CXLeadership

I’ve been reviewing culture data for a client, and the disconnect is staggering. Their culture is intense. Their work-life balance? Nearly nonexistent. Employees described constant interruptions, late-night pings, and personal time getting devoured by work. Their lived experience is full of overload and exhaustion. But in the engagement survey? 77–80% say they expect to be there a year from now. 75–82% say they’d recommend it as a great place to work. 78–83% say their values align with the company’s. How do we make sense of that? How do people say “this is unsustainable” and “I’ll stay” in the same breath? It’s not a mystery. It’s inertia. Familiarity. Fear of worse somewhere else. And sometimes, it’s just being too tired to imagine anything different. This is the danger of normalized exhaustion. It makes dysfunction feel like culture. And it makes good people stay in companies that quietly wear them down. If you’re a leader reading those kinds of survey results, don’t stop at the numbers. Ask what people aren’t saying out loud and whether they still believe burnout is just part of the job. #WorkCulture #OrganizationalHealth #Leadership #Burnout

PSA: Your engagement survey is a clue NOT a conclusion. And like any good mystery, one clue doesn’t solve the case. Yet I still see teams using it as their source of truth. But that "truth" is in fact a teeny tiny window into the real problem. If you're a team wanting to design people experiences that actually change things for your teams AND your business you must have the full picture. That means triangulating your data and validating assumptions by spotting patterns across different types of data, including: 🔢 Quantitative → e.g. survey scores, time-to-productivity, delivery metrics 💬 Qualitative → e.g. onboarding, stay and exit interviews, Glassdoor reviews 📈 Behavioural & Operational → e.g. Slack usage, LMS completion, 1:1s And here's why... 💬 Survey says: “I feel connected to my team during onboarding.” (High score) Oooh fab, job done. We're nailing it... But, woah hold up a minute... 🎙️ Interviews reveal: “I only spoke to my manager, I didn’t really meet anyone outside my team until week 3.” Erm... 📊 Behavioural data shows: Only 20% of new hires joined the ‘Meet the Team’ virtual social. So what’s really going on? The data now tells us that new starters feel some connection (likely with their immediate team), but broader belonging is delayed. That high score is masking a deeper gap in weak cross-functional connection and slow social integration. ↑ And this is your problem to solve. Because sure, we can all ride the survey score high for a day or two… But give it a few weeks, and suddenly, we’re wondering why things still feel off. That’s what happens when we hang our hats on one shiny data point. So this is your friendly reminder to go beyond the survey and build the full story. Because when you define the right problem to solve, that's when you design people experiences that deliver. How do you make sure you're focusing on the right problem to solve? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments 👇 #EmployeeEngagement #EmployeeExperience #DesignThinking ------ Hi 👋 I'm Alicia, co-founder of The Future Kind. We collaborate with founders, C-suite and People Ops leaders to design company operating systems that scale. Want to know more? Follow along or DM me, I love to hear form you. 💌

Why your company's engagement data isn’t telling you the full story.⬇️ Several times a year, I’m called in to help a company disappointed by their engagement data. They show me survey results—averages, percentages, and question breakdowns. And every single time, I see the same mistake: They focus on averages. But averages tell you nothing about what’s really happening. Engagement isn’t a company-wide metric. It’s the sum of individual team experiences. So, here’s what I do instead:  1️⃣ Break the data down by region, office, or team leader.  2️⃣ Focus on leaders—they drive engagement. 3️⃣ Look for patterns—who lifts, who lags? For example, I recently worked with a company to raise engagement across their teams. We identified what the best leaders were doing differently:  - Making time for meaningful, consistent conversations.  - Focusing on simple habits that extend beyond work.  - Building trust and creating psychological safety. Then, we brought those habits to leaders who were struggling—not to criticize, but to equip them with the tools that top-performing leaders already use. 9 months later, the company ran the survey again. Engagement scores had soared. Not because of sweeping company-wide initiatives. But because small, consistent changes at the team level made the difference. Here’s the lesson for you: If you’re disappointed by your engagement data, don’t just focus on the averages. Look at the leaders driving them—and give them the tools they need to succeed. Because engagement doesn’t live in a survey. It lives in the actions of every team leader, every single day. 

Engagement survey results are in.  Nobody's celebrating. Picture this: → 150 questions about everything from career development to office temperature.  → Mandatory participation.  → Results that disappear into a management black hole for six months. Then a company-wide email promising "action plans" that never materialise. Meanwhile, employees are thinking: "I told you the workload was unsustainable 8 months ago. You did nothing. Why should I bother again?" Annual engagement surveys treat employee sentiment like a yearly health check-up, gather data once, ignore it for twelve months, then act surprised when problems have gotten worse. The surveys that actually work are shorter, more frequent, and tied to immediate action. Pulse surveys that focus on specific, changeable factors rather than abstract "satisfaction" ratings. Most importantly, they close the feedback loop.  When employees raise concerns about workload, they see management response within weeks, not next year's survey cycle. The best engagement measurement feels like ongoing conversation rather than annual interrogation. For HR teams, this means engagement data that actually drives positive change rather than just satisfying leadership's need for metrics. When employees see their feedback leading to real improvements, they stay engaged with the process instead of checking out mentally.

You get FOUR chances to ask your customers why they bought your product. Most ecomm brands use ZERO, and it’s a massive waste. If you don't know why they bought, you can't personalize a single message that follows, and you're stuck sending the same generic sequence to everyone. Here are the 4 moments you have. Use them wisely: ★ 1. The pre-purchase pop-up Catch them at peak interest, before they've even paid. What are they hoping to fix/improve/achieve? Discover which USP of your product worked for them. (Alia is a good solution here.) ★ 2. The post-checkout thank you page 100% open rate on this page. KnoCommerce survey, ask why they bought. ★ 3. The follow-up survey, via email or SMS One more shot. Send it before the product delivery. Use Zaymo to get 1-click answers. ★ 4. Upon delivery QR code on packaging or insert. Ask them to scan it before they use the product. Last chance! If you miss all 4, you’re basically flying blind and hoping that you can guess why this customer wanted your product. Your messages can't be personalized, your onboarding feels random, and your upsells / cross-sells are spray-and-pray instead of targeted. After receiving 1... 2... 3 generic messages, they will eventually tune you out. And your chances of boosting habit formation or LTV are now way slimmer.

Most follow-ups fail because you ask, not add. They sound needy, vague, or desperate. Here’s a better approach: Add value + Ask one clear question. Reason why it works: → Value warms them up. → A single question makes replying easy. → Specifics prove you’re not copy-pasting. When to send it: → After applying (3-5 days) → After interview (24 hrs) → If you get silence (7-10 days after your last touch) The 2-line follow-up that gets replies (use this): Hi [Name], I applied for [Job Title] and thought you’d find this helpful, [one specific insight or relevant link]. Any chance you can share the next step for this role? Examples: → After applying: “Hi Sara, I applied for Product Manager, noticed your roadmap post and attached 2 quick ideas about customer onboarding. Any update on next steps?” → After interview: “Hi Raj, thanks again for today, I’ve sketched a 2-step plan to tackle X; would you like the outline?” → If ghosted: “Hi Mira, still excited about [Company]. Is there any missing info I can share to help your decision?” Small rules: → Be specific. → Keep it short. → Don’t send more than 2 follow-ups without new value. P.S. Want more templates pre-written? DM "Follow-up" and I’ll send them.

Recently, I was giving a talk on people analytics and employee listening when someone asked, “How do you overcome survey fatigue?” Here’s my hot take: survey fatigue is a myth. Think about it — if you approach someone with genuine curiosity and ask them about their experiences or opinions, how often do they say, “No thanks, I’m tired of sharing my thoughts”? Probably never. People love to be heard. What they don’t love is wasting their time. Or as Morgan Williams put it: It’s not survey fatigue, it’s "inaction fatigue." Employees don’t get tired of surveys; they get tired of giving feedback that goes nowhere. So, if you’re seeing low participation, ask yourself:  📊 Have we shared the results? (Yes, even when scores are low!)  ➡️ Have we shown employees ways their feedback led to real change? The best way to increase survey participation isn’t to send fewer surveys — it’s to *close the loop*. Share what you’ve learned. Take action. Make it clear that feedback actually matters.

I ignored survey responses for months. Leads sat cold. Generic thank-yous are a dead end. No follow-up = wasted data. It's like throwing away a treasure map after finding the first clue. Here's the fix. Drives real results. Segment respondents based on their answers. Tailored email journeys using those segments. (Send47 makes this easy). For respondents signaling strong interest—high scores, detailed feedback—we trigger personalized follow-up calls via Awaz. Full integration with our analytics platform, so we get clear attribution. The outcome? Follow-up conversion rates jumped 6x. And our customers feel genuinely heard. Personalization matters. Broadcast messaging is a missed opportunity.

Are we getting "staff engagement" wrong? In a few weeks, the 2026 NHS Staff Survey will commence, the largest employee survey in the world. In the 2025 survey, the worsening scores for “engagement” (a five year low) were a significant area for concern. We tend to treat engagement as a dial. Up is good. As an NHS England Board report stated “a 1% increase in the engagement theme score generally equates to a 1-1.5% increase in productivity”. Down is a problem to fix, with pulse surveys and an action plan. We need additional thinking. I’ve been reading recent papers that use ideas from William Kahn, the originator of the concept of “employee engagement” (links in comments). They don’t describe engagement as a dial. They view it as people choosing whether to bring their full selves into a role or withdraw to protect themselves from it. Withdrawal is not an absence of energy. It's energy redirected elsewhere. When we label someone as "disengaged," we mean their energy has stopped flowing toward the organisation's priorities. We need to understand where it's gone instead. In health and care, we can see it going in three directions: - Self-protection: when people feel they have been let down by decisions above them and guardedness becomes a rational response to what they perceive as institutional betrayal - Identity outside the role: when a job stops giving back and people reinvest in family, community or a professional network that feels more meaningful than the org chart - Resistance: when people are highly invested in protecting patients or colleagues from decisions they believe are wrong, just not in the direction that leaders want Disengagement is not apathy. It's agency, just pointed somewhere else. Global data supports this. Falls in workforce engagement are happening across many industries. It's driven less by people in frontline roles and more by a decline in manager engagement, which moves down through their teams. The “disengagement” problem often starts with the people we are asking to fix it, not the people we describe as having it. For those of us leading change in health and care, three moves follow. 1) Replace "how do we engage/re-engage them?" with "what are they engaged in instead and why did that become more worthwhile than this?" Make it a diagnostic, not a motivational campaign 2) Look one level up before looking at people at the frontline. Engagement is substantially inherited from line managers. Have the conversation with the team leader 3) Find data on the causes of withdrawal. We can use Kahn’s framework of meaningfulness (a purpose conversation), safety (a trust conversation) and availability (a capacity conversation). We need to understand all three People are not empty containers waiting to be filled with motivation from above. They're already full. Change leadership means understanding what they are full of and building the trust and conditions for that energy to flow back toward the people and purpose we serve.