How often should we survey?

Your organization wouldn’t consider operating without a defined budget, right? And it wouldn’t get far without its mission statement, or projections for the next few years. We advise that you think of the employee engagement survey as essential to how your organization operates.

Doing one survey is an effective way to identify areas where the organization can improve and to take the pulse of employee engagement. But by repeating the survey, the organization will be able to see if it’s improving on commitments, where it’s improving, and where it needs to direct attention. By monitoring trends and tapping into the opinions and ideas of employees, senior leaders can keep a finger on the pulse of the organization.

TalentMap recommends that a full engagement survey be completed every one to two years. Build the survey into your annual business planning, and continue a cycle of survey, analyze, take action, and repeat.

Conducting a follow-up pulse survey about 6 months to 1 year after the initial survey ensures that action plans are working. It also creates internal benchmarks against which to measure future successes.