How to Design, Implement, and Interpret an Employee Survey

INTRODUCTION

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

—CAPTAIN (STROTHER MARTIN), Cool Hand Luke

We seem to be a society that enjoys surveys and polls—both by participating in them and reviewing the results. We want our opinions to be known, and we want to discover how our opinions compare with those of others. The government and political parties constantly conduct polls and publish their results to support their decisions and positions. Newspapers routinely ask questions of the public regarding current events. Television programs seem to increasingly include both telephone numbers and Web site addresses for viewers to express their opinions—opinions that are often compiled and reported on during the programs. Market researchers regularly ...