We recommend identifying a core survey team who will design the survey and key individuals whose roles will be required in administering the survey (ex: internal communications and IT).

4. Review the Employee File Template 

This document will indicate who should be invited to your survey and will include the demographic variables for how you want to breakdown the data when reviewing results.

Before the implementation call, review the Employee File Set-up Spreadsheet which outlines how to prepare your file in the format required. 

The following fields will need to be populated:

• Employee first name
• Employee last name
• Employee email address
• Employee supervisor name
• Employee supervisor ID (this will be used to set up your organization’s hierarchy)
• Any demographic fields (tenure range, age range, department, gender, race, location)

5. Leverage Templates to Communicate the Survey Internally 

Review our Communications Guide for tips on how to best communicate they survey within your organization in order to raise awareness and increase participation. Leverage templates in getting your message out. Additionally, review suggestions for communicating results following the close of the survey. 

Brainstorm key themes your organization wants to explore and/or provide any documentation to your Consultant that will help him/her develop your survey content (previous survey results, strategy, and culture documents are very helpful). Come prepared to discuss your thoughts concerning the survey questions and instructional text.

We want to help you ask all the right questions. But the truth is, your employees are busy and have many competing demands. To reduce survey fatigue and ensure that participants complete the entire survey, we aim to keep the survey around 10 minutes to complete. 

1. Core Survey 

Newmeasures' validated core survey consists of 28 questions, 2 of which invite open-ended comments. The core survey covers what our research has found to be the key drivers of engagement. The core survey often serves as a starting point for customization, but we don’t advise having more than 45 questions.

Review Newmeasures' Engagement Model and the items that comprise the Newmeasures Core Survey (found on the “Engagement Survey Draft” tab).

2. Prepare the Employee File 

The employee file identifies who should take the survey, serves as the basis of the organizational hierarchy, and connects demographical metadata to each employee. It is important to provide Newmeasures with a clean and complete file using our template.

• Participant exclusions: Consider the criteria that will exclude employees from participating in the engagement survey and communicate those decisions to all employees. For example, some organizations choose not to include employees hired within the past 90 days. All people who have direct reports in the organizational hierarchy must be included, even if they will not be taking the survey (i.e. the CEO).
• Demographic metadata: These fields are used to filter the dashboard and compare the survey results of different demographic groups. This information can also be used to determine how questions are displayed to participants (e.g. showing a specific question only to a certain department, piping in their supervisor’s name in a question related to management). Common fields include: Department, Location, Region, Facility, Tenure, Age, Gender, Race/Ethnicity, Generation, Management Level, Title and Country.

3. Approve the Survey Messages

Develop the messages for administering the survey including the survey instructions, invitation, reminder, and dashboard emails. Download the System Messages Template to use as a starting point, and return the completed messages to us via email. There is also a full Communications Guide on the Project Kickoff tab that outlines how to approach communicating about your survey more broadly.

4. Confirm Survey Distribution

There are 3 main ways to deliver the engagement survey to participants, each with its own pros and cons.

• Unique links: A unique survey link is generated for each employee that is connected to their individual metadata found in the employee file. The link is distributed using the Qualtrics messaging system. If all employees have a work email address, we recommend this simple and direct method. It is the only way to automate reminder emails to be sent only to people who have not yet completed the survey and leaves the least amount of room for human error.
• Authentication link: A single survey link is generated that prompts employees to enter a unique piece of information (e.g. employee ID number, last name+last 4 digits of SSN) to access the survey. The unique authentication is connected to the individual’s metadata found in the employee file. This method is effective if email distribution is not Newmeasures, LLC 6 www.newmesures.com an option. There is a small risk of human error, as someone could mistype their authentication and enter the survey under another employee’s record, compromising the data.
• Open link: A single survey link is generated that prompts employees to self-report their demographic metadata. An employee file is not needed with this delivery option. This is the only truly anonymous way of collecting survey responses, but there is no way to ensure that only current employees can access to the survey or prevent people from submitting multiple responses. There is also considerable room for human error with the self-reporting of metadata.

It is also possible for us to create a single sign-on (SSO) integration for organizations that have an internal login system. The biggest advantage of using SSO is the ability to use the same credentials for both Qualtrics and your organization’s internal systems, providing a seamless user experience. This option is most commonly used by larger organizations, as it also reduces the amount of administrative work required to execute the project. 

5. Translations

If you intend to distribute your survey in multiple languages, specify which ones so we can generate a translation template. Return the template with translations of the survey questions along with translated versions of the survey invitation, reminder, and dashboard release emails. Note: Qualtrics can auto-translate survey questions and email messages using a Google Translate integration, but most clients find this method imperfect and opt to prepare their own translations.