I feel a bit silly for asking this, but I’d rather know the answer than sit and wonder about it every time I drop a survey. Do you take any of the ones you deploy? I know this might not apply if we were using a third party for our data collection, but we’re too small for that right now so everything is collected and analyzed in-house. Avoiding bias seems difficult, but having data from every department is also important. What are your best practices?
Interesting question and curious to see if there are other people geeks that have wrestled with this question. My initial thought is that it is important for you to participate - even if the analysis is done in-house. I think it sends the wrong message to the company of the People and Culture team doesn’t include themselves in an assessment of engagement with the organization.
I can see the potential downsides regarding confidentiality and perceived bias given you are doing the analysis in-house. That said, with proper communication about the purpose of the survey, I think the benefits of your feedback being part of the overall results outweigh the risks.
I take our surveys, and we run our survey in-house. I agree with Josh that the completeness of the data is very important, as long as you are answering honestly. You are an employee too, and your opinion is just as valid as everyone else’s.
I also think it is important for you to take part in the Survey. The “smaller” the company, the more important it is to get a 360 degree view on things. An inhouse survey can be difficult to carry out without bias, but I think it is irrelevant if the survey is carried out and analysed externally or internally, as long as communication/Information flows (before, during and after) - it is important to motivate/encourage participation.
I wanted to come back and say thanks for all of your responses! I ended up taking the engagement survey and provided transparency to our team about it. It felt like the right thing to do, and the data was a more accurate representation of how things were for our team. In hindsight, there were a few questions where I agreed with other employees on issues, and they might have felt alone in providing that data if I’d not taken it myself. It’s now much easier to work on those things! I’m grateful for all the thoughtful responses!