Employee surveys are an integral part of Human Capital valuation. Employee surveys are also well-known and proven tools in Human Capital Management. They are also one of the management approaches frequently used in small and medium-sized companies. Given the general acceptance of employee surveys it is surprising how much companies have to rely on external consultants as there seems to be a lack of pragmatic approaches and publications.
There are three major phases in conducting an employee survey: (1) The preparation phase with a focus on creating the questionnaire, (2) the execution phase with a focus on Online-surveys and (3) the analysis and evaluation phase. Besides data for the HC valuation, the results of such a survey can then be used to guide further activities of the company and its management.
There are several proposals for the actual questionnaire and an organization can of course design its own questionnaire while drawing on previous research results. Examples are the Arbeitsbeschreibungsbogen (ABB) and the Towers Perrin’s engagement index. By now there are also open-source software packages available which enable any organization to perform low-cost, highly effective online surveys. Examples are phpESP and PHPSurveyor. Open-source software also provides low-cost alternatives to analyze survey results, such as ViSTa and Gnumeric.
As a conclusion, the author is convinced that every organization (even SMEs) are very well capable of preparing and conducting employee surveys on their own. The effort is estimated to be a few man days. Further details can be found in the book “Valuing Human Capital in SME”.