The best companies do want to take care of their employees, but face the ongoing challenge of meeting changing needs while maintaining financial stability. Unfortunately, these don’t always align. Conflicting priorities mean that employers need to be intentional about the benefits, programs, and policies they offer. Companies that solicit employee feedback to best understand their employees with survey data will stay ahead of the curve, updating their employee experiences to meet the new standards. To get you started, we’ll catch you up with the key dynamics at play today (especially for working parents) and sample questions to get their feedback that will help companies solve these modern workplace challenges.
There’s no denying that employee standards have changed. But have you noticed that employees today are more likely to advocate and speak up when they’re not happy? While not meeting employee standards could lead to increased attrition, which is costly and painful, it could also skew in the direction of QuitTok where employees are secretly filming their resignation and sharing it on social media. This loud trend is dangerous for employers and may have become more popular over the past year with insensitive mass layoffs, but it still puts more pressure on employers to keep up with the changing dynamics.
So why are changing dynamics so important for companies? Glassdoor found that Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z will be the highest percentage in the workforce by next year, and many are working parents. Yes, even Gen Z. There’s no longer a clear divide between work and family, so companies need to consider what may be impacting their employees outside of their jobs.
To see what factors may be impacting your employees engagement, morale, and productivity, here are a few key dynamics to consider:
While many companies collect general employee feedback on aspects such as culture and communication, there is often a gap in plug-and-play employee surveys when it comes to understanding how valued the existing benefits and programs are. Aside from standard questions asking about general satisfaction around total rewards, companies are usually left in the dark about what benefits and programs they should keep, update, or nix.
To give you an idea of how challenging this decision can be without collecting feedback, here's an breakdown of benefits that employees value the most by generation from a recent Workplace Wellness survey:
As an example where companies may be missing the mark, Retirement Benefits are often offered but are less valued than Flexibility in Work Location for the age range 35-49, which is also the group that's most likely to be working parents. Unfortunately, Flexibility in Work Location is also less likely to be offered with RTO mandates, making that company less likely to retain working parents.
Similarly, programs like paid parental leave are often ignored or disregarded by employers because it's complicated and difficult to manage. Only 27% of employees have access to paid parental leave even though it's the third most desired incentive, benefit, or perk for employees, beating out 401K contributions. Working parents remain a large part of the employee population, but companies won't know what to prioritize without a feedback loop. Leveraging employee feedback through survey responses is an excellent data-driven way to update benefits and programs that solve actual challenges employees face in the workplace.
So for companies to best understand how to update policies to best support their modern employees, they should be surveying employees for feedback. And the best way to do that is by incorporating both rated and open-ended questions.
Asking rated questions is recommended because it provides companies with a quantitative analysis, providing clear metrics for evaluation. It’s also a fast way to look at the aggregate data, helping companies easily understand employees’ satisfaction levels with existing benefits, insurance, and total rewards packaging. This will ensure employers can make data driven decisions based on their employee feedback.
From a scale of 1-5...
While these questions are rated, you may find that asking for clarification with an open-ended question is helpful.
While more time-consuming to analyze, open-ended questions offer valuable qualitative insights that complement quantitative data from rated questions. They allow employees to provide detailed feedback, suggestions, and personal experiences regarding the existing benefits and programs. If kept to 1-2 open ended questions per survey, employers can gain a lot of valuable insights.
* Whenever possible, include this final question when asking for employee feedback because you don't know what you don't know. This question will capture anything you've missed and also ensure employees have the opportunity to share anything else that's relevant.
Any of these questions can be added to existing surveys or asked separately in feedback sessions. Here are a few tips for collecting quality feedback:
The insights gained can be extremely helpful for companies looking to analyze their current programs and benefits. By asking the right questions and acting on the insights gained, such as updating policies based on feedback, companies can solve modern workplace challenges and meet modern employee standards.
Working parents today are navigating a different work-life integration, so a willingness to solicit and act on their feedback can go a long way. Did paid parental leave show up as a top request? Or perhaps having flexible schedules to better balance work and family? Incorporating the feedback into decision-making is essential for engaging and retaining your working parents. Offering competitive policies updated by continuous feedback can help companies cultivate a supportive environment for working parents. This collaborative and iterative approach to benefits and programs ensures that companies can meet employees where they are today (not yesterday), creating a positive workplace culture and ensuring organizational success into tomorrow.
