Internal Marketing

Reservations and oppositions against employee surveys

Despite the wide spreading and professionalisation of employee surveys, they still require explanation in many companies and administrations and have to be established with the aid of internal marketing targeted at oppositions and barriers.

Risk analysis of employee surveys

The symptoms of oppositions can be system-related in terms of an anti-employee survey corporate culture, rigid controlling or the still lacking priority of the personnel department. Furthermore, a low response rate of some employee surveys can lead to problems accepting the instrument. One can assume that failed initiatives by heads of personnel departments also provoke further reservations. The role perception of executives to actively force the required implementation of survey results also lets executives have certain reservations against employee surveys.

Call for overcoming oppositions

Still, a lot of convincing is required to reduce existing oppositions and to gain support for the employee survey. In order to achieve that, we recommend a concept: the internal employee survey marketing.

Relevance of the internal marketing

The relevance of the internal marketing for the success of employee surveys is more and more regarded as a critical factor for success. It is worth paying more attention to the manifold marketing tasks relating to the planning, execution, evaluation and implementation of the employee survey than in the past. All information and communication channels available in the company ought to be utilised in order to make the employee survey public and to win over the employees, executives and the works council for the survey.

Objectives of the internal marketing

Aims of the internal marketing:

• approval of the filed application for the employee survey by the responsible company management as well as the release of the required budget
  
• gaining acceptance and support from executives and works councils for the intended employee survey
  
• promotion of the employees' willingness to participate in the survey and securing of a response rate as high as possible
  
• information about survey results and their communication to different target groups
  
• advertising for the prompt implementation of the survey results on all levels of the organisational hierarchy

Support potential of ISPA consult

The experience from successfully carried out employee surveys can be used to design the internal marketing more effectively and more efficiently. That way we can, for example, profitably bring experience-based conclusions to our guidelines and recommendations for action in order to increase the response rates.

Support measures

Support measures our client companies often make use of:

• support of the employee survey initiator or project manager in the planned project application for a first or repeated survey through new ideas, concepts and benefit arguments
  
• preparation of guidelines and presentation documents
  
• representation of the employee survey initiator in steering committees, discussion rounds and meetings
  
• design and spreading of the employee survey information and communication material in the form of notices, posters, announcement letters, newsletters, staff journals, introductory texts for questionnaires with participation incentives, assurance of anonymity, etc.
  
• target group-specific reporting of survey results
  
• advertising for the implementation of survey results