Employee feedback strengthens workplace relationships and improves organizational effectiveness. By listening to your employees, the HR team can gain insights into employee concerns, expectations, and areas for improvement.
Today, many workplaces utilize survey tools to collect organized, actionable employee feedback. Survey tools make it easy for organizations to quantify employee engagement, satisfaction, and overall experience.
As HR software continues to evolve, so do survey tools, which play an important part in the HR software suite. These tools integrate easily with payroll, attendance management, and leave management software. This is essential for making informed HR decisions.
Let’s start by understanding what a survey tool actually is.
What Are Survey Tools?
Survey Tools are the digital platform used by HR professionals for many reasons and for multiple purposes. Survey tools are digital solutions to create, manage, distribute, and analyze survey results. It helps HR departments obtain employee input through systematic, private, and measurable means, rather than collecting informal insight through manual processes.
Survey tools provide HR teams with data-driven insight about employee satisfaction and trends, enabling them to improve their organization based on employee feedback. In general, survey tools are integrated into larger, multi-purpose HR software solutions or Human Resource Software Solutions. Survey tools provide HR teams with tools to create surveys, manage survey responses in real-time, review response trends, and develop action plans based on survey results.
Why Survey Tools Are Important for HR and Organizations?
1. Increased Employee Engagement
Survey tools provide an opportunity for HR to assess the motivation, level of engagement, and workplace issues (concerns of employees), allowing for quick action when confidence or productivity is impacted.
2. Informed HR Decisions Based on Data
Survey tools convert employee feedback into measurable data; therefore, HR can make better decisions based on actual employee feedback rather than guessing.
3. Increased Retention
Consistent feedback through survey tools enables HR to identify areas of concern early on, thereby reducing employee turnover and resulting in a higher long-term retention rate.
4. Building a Stronger Workplace Culture
Survey tools allow organizations to see cultural gaps, potential issues with leadership, and communication barriers, and therefore, help create a better workplace.
5. Information for Performance Management
Survey tools provide HR with information about employee feedback on their performance, the team’s cooperative efforts, and managers’ effectiveness in managing employees.
6. Improving the Design of Policies and Processes
HR can utilize feedback gained through survey tools to develop better practices regarding payroll software processes, managing attendance software policies, and managing leave software rules.
7. Honest and Confidential Feedback
Anonymous survey tools create an atmosphere where employees feel comfortable providing honest feedback without fear, which increases the quality of feedback.
What Are the Types of Survey Tools Used in HR?
HR teams use different types of survey tools based on their goals and employee lifecycle stages:
1. Surveys on Employee Engagement
HR uses Employee Engagement Surveys to determine whether employees are motivated, involved, and emotionally tied to the organization’s objectives and values.
Employee Engagement Surveys provide information on: employee morale, the quality of employee relationships with supervisors and coworkers, the effectiveness of leaders to engage their employees, and areas where employee engagement can be improved.
2. Employee Satisfaction Surveys
Survey instruments designed to assess employees’ expression of satisfaction with their workplace.
HR will use the data provided by employees completing Employee Satisfaction Surveys to assist in improving policies, improving payroll processes, and improving the overall employee experience.
3. Pulse Surveys
Pulse Surveys are shorter and are typically conducted frequently. HR will conduct Pulse Surveys to determine employees’ feelings and feedback about their work environment in real time.
By conducting a Pulse Survey, HR will have the ability to identify employee issues early and track changes in employee moods and engagement levels.
4. Onboarding Survey Tools
Onboarding survey tools allow new hires to give feedback on their experience during orientation and training, how well they were communicated with, and their initial impression of the company.
HR uses this feedback to improve employee onboarding programs, decrease early turnover rates, and create an overall positive first impression of the organization.
5. Exit Survey Tools
Exit survey tools are designed to collect information from employees who have resigned or been terminated, in order to identify the reasons for leaving or becoming disengaged with the organization.
HR analyzes exit survey data in order to find patterns of turnover, identify areas of weakness within the organization, and determine where organizational improvements can be made.
6. 360 Degree Feedback Tools
360-degree feedback tools help collect performance-related feedback from peers, managers, and direct reports within the organization in an organized manner.
They are intended to support fair evaluations, develop leaders, and encourage continuous development within the workplace.
Key Features to Look for in HR Survey Tools
1. Create Surveys Easily
HR teams can create surveys quickly and easily using templates and drag-and-drop tools. Anyone can create a survey using EasySurvey.
2. Anonymous Responses
Anonymous response options give employees the ability to be frank in their feedback without fear of revenge. This increases trust and participation in employee feedback surveys and creates more accurate results.
3. Real-Time Analytics
Real-time analytics gives HR teams the ability to track survey responses immediately, identify trends, and make quicker, data-driven decisions in the workplace.
4. Integration with HR Software
Integration with HR software allows survey results to be linked with payroll, attendance, and leave management systems.
5. Customization and Branding
HR teams can tailor their surveys to fit their company’s culture and communication style through customization options.
6. Automated Reminders and Follow-Up
Automated reminders and follow-up notifications increase the likelihood of survey completions as employees are prompted to respond by a specific date.
How HR Teams Use Survey Tools Effectively?
At each stage of the employee lifecycle, HR uses survey tools to gain insight into how well the organisation’s onboarding process works and how employees feel about the organisation as a whole through pulse surveys for employees. Pulse surveys measure the level of employee engagement and morale.
HR can utilize survey tools in conjunction with their Human Resource (HR) software to combine feedback from employees with other data points such as attendanceTracking, leave usage, and payroll data. This allows HR to find patterns and gain further insight into underlying reasons that may be causing performance and satisfaction issues for employees.
Effective HR teams are closing the feedback loop by providing employees with survey results along with information on the action plans they will implement as a result of employee feedback. This process clearly demonstrates to employees that their opinions will positively impact the organisation.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Using Survey Tools
Employers have access to many survey options to collect employee feedback, and when used properly, can provide an excellent source of insight for HR departments. However, if surveys are not planned well, set with clear goals, and supported with follow-up, the overall participation level will likely be low, and the insights will be restricted.
Below are some frequently occurring mistakes that employers should avoid when implementing workplace surveys:
- Using workplace surveys more than necessary leads to survey fatigue and declining rates of employee participation.
- Asking unclear questions that are too long and complex for employees to understand.
- Failing to ensure confidentiality and data privacy, and, therefore, discouraging employees from providing honest feedback to the organization.
- Not responding to information received from surveys leaves employees feeling that their input is unappreciated.
- Not communicating survey results and planned future actions based on survey input to employees.
- Using surveys as a standalone tool without incorporating survey data into software tools already being utilized by HR departments.
- Depending solely on survey data as the only source of employee feedback without combining with other forms of employee feedback.
How to Choose the Right Survey Tools for Your Organization?
1. Identify Your Goals for Your Survey
Determine whether the survey will provide information regarding employee Engagement, Satisfaction, Performance, or Compliance, so you can determine which survey tool will be best for your needs!
2. Assess How Easy it Will Be to use
Use a survey tool that is easy for both HR and Employees to use, and be sure to get an idea of how many questions and how much detail the software provides.
3. Review HRMS Integration
Ensure that your survey tool has an easy-to-use interface integrated with your payroll, attendance management, and leave management systems.
4. Prioritize Data Security
When selecting the tool to manage surveys, make sure that the software provider follows comprehensive data privacy and security standards.
5. Look for Advanced Analytics
Advanced analytics and dashboards allow HR professionals to convert employee feedback into actionable insights to improve employee engagement and experience.
6. Choose Tools That Will Grow with Your Organization
Select survey tools that are designed to scale in line with your organization and the number of employees within your organization.
7. Evaluate the Level of Support
The availability of reliable customer service and training is important for the successful rollout of the survey tool and ongoing implementation success.
Survey Tools vs Traditional Feedback Methods
| Criteria | Survey Tools | Traditional Feedback Methods |
| Data Collection | Digital, fast, and scalable | Manual and time-consuming |
| Anonymity | High confidentiality options | Limited or no anonymity |
| Data Analysis | Automated reports and analytics | Manual interpretation |
| Accuracy | Data-driven and measurable | Often subjective |
| Integration | Works with HR software and HRMS | Standalone processes |
| Employee Participation | Higher with reminders | Lower participation |
| Decision Making | Insight-based | Opinion-based |
Why Savvy HRMS Is the Best Choice?
With the combination of strong survey capabilities and full HR Software capabilities, Savvy HRMS provides you with an all-in-one integrated solution that allows HR departments to collect employee feedback in real time while linking that information directly back to other workforce data.
While there are several stand-alone Survey Tool Managers available, Savvy HRMS integrates survey capability directly into your existing payroll software, attendance management software, and leave management software in order to create a central repository of HR decision-making information.
Savvy HRMS has been specifically designed for use by Indian organizations, with features such as user-friendly dashboards, compliance-ready, and customizable options enabling you to easily turn the feedback into actionable steps.
Conclusion
Modern HR Strategies need survey tools, which have become important to listening to employees, increasing employee engagement, decreasing turnover, and making more informed choices based on actual data. Combining survey tools with the appropriate HR Software creates maximum effectiveness.
With Savvy HRMS, a survey tool combined with Payroll Software, Attendance, and leave management software on one powerful platform, allows you to make HR operations simpler, smarter, and more efficient.
Contact us today for your Free Demo of Savvy HRMS and discover how the right combination of survey tools can help to improve your organisation’s Human resource strategy.
