Every autumn, the same sequence. The survey goes out, participation comes back at 72%, a score of 7.4 out of 10 is presented to the leadership committee, and the whole thing repeats next year at 7.3. Nothing moved in between, because nothing was decided.
The headline score means nothing
A 7.4 is an average. It can describe a company that is uniformly fine, or one where three teams live at 9 and a fourth at 4. Those two situations call for completely different interventions, and the score makes them indistinguishable.
The first thing to do with survey results is throw away the average and look at the spread between units.
Measuring is not diagnosing
The survey tells you that people do not feel recognized. It never tells you why. For that you have to leave the questionnaire behind:
- exit interviews that ask one real open question
- cross-referencing with turnover rate by team
- focus groups run by someone who is not the boss.
A survey is a smoke detector. It wakes you up. It does not tell you where the fire is, and it puts nothing out.
The 30-day rule
The strongest predictor of next year's response rate is not questionnaire length or send timing. It is whether anything visibly changed after the last one.
After collection
- Share results within two weeks, including the bad ones.
- Announce one concrete decision within 30 days.
- Name what will not change, and say why.
- Return to that decision at the next survey.
Three actions announced and never delivered cost more than zero actions. They teach the organization that answering is pointless.
