Employee surveys people actually answer

Why traditional surveys miss hourly workers

Annual engagement surveys usually arrive by email, take 20 minutes and ask abstract questions. Hourly employees may not have work email, may only have a few spare minutes during a break, and rarely see what happened with the last survey. Response rates drop, and the results mostly reflect the office.

EZTime announcements send updates to exactly the employees who need them, right on their phone.

Types of surveys and when to use them

Sample questions that work

• How fair do you find the way shifts are assigned? (1 to 5)
• Do you get your schedule early enough to plan your week?
• What is one thing that slows you down on a typical shift?
• Did you have what you needed to do your job this week?
• Which day works best for next month’s team meeting?
• After your first two weeks: what would have helped you settle in faster?

Running a pulse survey in five steps

1. Pick one topic, such as scheduling or safety.
2. Write no more than five short questions.
3. Send it to the group it concerns, during working time.
4. Share a summary of results within two weeks.
5. Say what you will change and report back.

If employees answer during their shift, the time is generally work time for non-exempt staff, so keep surveys short and schedule them sensibly.

An example

A grocery store asked its 45 employees one monthly question for six months. The second poll showed that most cashiers wanted schedules published earlier. The manager moved publication from Thursday to the previous Monday. Two months later, the same question about planning ahead scored clearly higher, and swap requests at the last minute fell.

Mistakes to avoid

• Asking about things you cannot or will not change.
• Sending the same long survey to every role.
• Collecting answers and never sharing results.
• Using results to find out who complained.
• Running surveys only during the busiest season.

The fastest way to kill participation is silence after a survey. Even a short note saying “here is what you told us, and here is what we are doing” keeps people answering next time.

Turning answers into action

Pick one or two actions per survey, announce them, and report back on them next time.

Surveys in EZTime

The EZTime company feed supports surveys where employees choose one option, open questions with free answers and read confirmations. You choose the audience before publishing, see results as they come in and can export survey results to Excel. Because the feed lives in the same app employees use to clock in, polls reach people who never open email.

Survey rules worth knowing

Surveys are a normal management tool, but a few legal points apply. Under the National Labor Relations Act, enforced by the National Labor Relations Board, employees have the right to discuss pay and working conditions, and employers should not use surveys to ask about union views or activity. If you promise anonymity, keep it: do not report results for groups so small that answers can be traced back to one person, a common rule is no group under five. Questions about health conditions can raise issues under the Americans with Disabilities Act, enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, so leave them out of general surveys.

A worked example: reading a response rate

The numbers are fictional. A retailer surveys 140 hourly employees across four stores. Store A returns 31 of 36, store B 28 of 35, store C 12 of 34 and store D 30 of 35.

The overall 72 percent looks healthy, but store C’s low rate is itself a finding. Before reading its answers, ask why. In this case, the store manager had not mentioned the survey and the store had no time set aside to answer it. Low participation in one group is often the most useful result of the whole survey.

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