Why No One Likes Surveys

Why No One Likes Surveys

Most people I’ve met don’t like taking them. But why?

 

By Jared Lafitte

Here are a few honest answers from actual people.

“If I take a survey it won’t contribute to change anyway. It’s just an empty HR formality.”

“I don’t trust that I can be honest. I’m afraid of my company retaliating. I basically just lie.”

“My company gave us financial incentives for answering the survey questions the way they wanted.”

I’ve never enjoyed company surveys. As a coach and consultant, I’ve used them, but I’ve never really liked them.

It’s hard to measure how someone’s feeling using a scale from 1 to 5. Human emotions are too complex. Human experiences are too multifaceted.

How can I really gauge what’s going on in someone’s mind, much less predict how they’ll behave, with a handful of answers filled with numbers or terms like “moderately true” or “I choose not to respond”?

I can’t. No one can. And for most surveys, it takes days, weeks, and sometimes months to sort through what responses mean.

By then, many of the people who took the survey in the first place aren’t even in the company anymore. Virtually everyone else who’s still there has changed their feelings because people’s feelings change every day.

You’ve seen the question…

“How has your experience here been over the last six months? Please answer on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being “Excellent.”

How can anyone compress six months of their life into a single number? How can I expect to make sense of that information and build a better company out of it?
Surveys shouldn’t be like this. In an ideal world… Surveys should ask questions that completely engage me, with a full understanding of what I’m going through. My response to a survey shouldn’t take weeks or months to interpret. It should be interpreted instantaneously, as if I were talking to real human being. A survey should learn what I’m feeling week by week and understand my state of mind as clearly as I do myself. A survey should help my leaders understand exactly not only what I’m feeling and my peers are feeling, but what actions to take as a result. A survey should be able to do this for tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people at the same time, delivering instantaneous results so leaders can spend less time gathering and analyzing and more time actually making people‘s lives better. Survey should be able to tell me what people are actually thinking and anticipate how disengaged they are and how likely they are to leave their company. As an entrepreneur and consultant who has worked with HR departments for the better part of the last decade, this is something I would have used if it existed. So I helped build it. And I’ve gotten some of the largest companies in the world to help me make it better.

Rethinking Employee Wellness: Speaking to the Mind

nurture employees

Why No One Likes Surveys

Most people I’ve met don’t like taking them. But why?

 

By Jared Lafitte

Here are a few honest answers from actual people.

“If I take a survey it won’t contribute to change anyway. It’s just an empty HR formality.”

“I don’t trust that I can be honest. I’m afraid of my company retaliating. I basically just lie.”

“My company gave us financial incentives for answering the survey questions the way they wanted.”

I’ve never enjoyed company surveys. As a coach and consultant, I’ve used them, but I’ve never really liked them.

It’s hard to measure how someone’s feeling using a scale from 1 to 5. Human emotions are too complex. Human experiences are too multifaceted.

How can I really gauge what’s going on in someone’s mind, much less predict how they’ll behave, with a handful of answers filled with numbers or terms like “moderately true” or “I choose not to respond”?

I can’t. No one can. And for most surveys, it takes days, weeks, and sometimes months to sort through what responses mean.

By then, many of the people who took the survey in the first place aren’t even in the company anymore. Virtually everyone else who’s still there has changed their feelings because people’s feelings change every day.

You’ve seen the question…

“How has your experience here been over the last six months? Please answer on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being “Excellent.”

How can anyone compress six months of their life into a single number? How can I expect to make sense of that information and build a better company out of it?
Surveys shouldn’t be like this. In an ideal world… Surveys should ask questions that completely engage me, with a full understanding of what I’m going through. My response to a survey shouldn’t take weeks or months to interpret. It should be interpreted instantaneously, as if I were talking to real human being. A survey should learn what I’m feeling week by week and understand my state of mind as clearly as I do myself. A survey should help my leaders understand exactly not only what I’m feeling and my peers are feeling, but what actions to take as a result. A survey should be able to do this for tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people at the same time, delivering instantaneous results so leaders can spend less time gathering and analyzing and more time actually making people‘s lives better. Survey should be able to tell me what people are actually thinking and anticipate how disengaged they are and how likely they are to leave their company. As an entrepreneur and consultant who has worked with HR departments for the better part of the last decade, this is something I would have used if it existed. So I helped build it. And I’ve gotten some of the largest companies in the world to help me make it better.

Feedback That Gives Back!

Kickn It For A Cause

Feedback that gives back.

If you’re a company, creating understanding and trust with your customers and employees is delicate and time-consuming work. We know. We’ve run companies, sold companies, consulted for companies… and are now building another one. Our clients and customers, and our employees and contractors are the heart and soul of what we do. Without them, we’re not a company.

By Jared Lafitte

Getting feedback and understanding what your people need is the first step toward building trust and creating growth. But sometimes feedback, especially quality, actionable feedback, is hard to come by.

This is why we’re endeavoring to do something that has never been done before in the customer service and feedback industry. For every response to any questions our clients send to their customers, fans, employees, and constituents, Mandy AI will donate to a charity. Every response.

Why is this important to us? A few reasons. Feedback is important to help companies grow, and getting people to give meaningful feedback is hard. The average survey response rate across all industries is less than 10%! We feel that if customers and employees know that their feedback is making an immediate contribution to a child’s life, simply by sending a reply text or answering a question in an email box, they’ll be motivated by the impact they’re making.

Second, the more feedback customer and employees give, the more they and we are able to support several worthy charities, and the better-informed their companies are about how to be better themselves. In a culture that looks for ways to make an impact, it’s a win-win.

We’re proud to introduce to you our partner charity, Kickin’ It For a Cause. This California organization led by a friend of our company works to supply shoes to impoverished children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In the words of founder Chris Strachan, “Kick’n it For a Cause utilizes sneakers as a vehicle to break down social barriers and bring people together.

Our efforts are designed to connect to people through the love of sneakers and pop-culture with the goal of igniting important conversations that address and impact important social issues.

Through our digital media platform and our community events, donors get to experience the impact of their generous donations.”

If you want to get involved, simply sign up for a free trial of Mandy AI here: https://hello.mandy.ai/register

Once you start communicating with your customers or employees, Mandy will send a donation to Kickin’ It For a Cause for each time someone responds to you.

It has never been easier to make an impact.