How Do We Structure Benefit Surveys?

How Do We Structure Benefit Surveys?

Q: We want to use detailed surveys so our employees could rate the good and bad features of their employee benefits package. Which questions are likely to elicit the most useful feedback?

A: Bravo to you for asking the questions. Though we've seen a considerable increase in organizations surveying employees about benefit programs, too few actually do anything with the information they learn. Instead, many keep writing ever-bigger checks for their programs, and endure the wrath of what they perceive to be an ungrateful workforce.

If you're aiming for a comprehensive review of employee perceptions of your various benefits, conducting a stand-alone survey will be better suited to your purpose than incorporating a series of benefits questions into a broader satisfaction survey.

Depending on the particular benefit, you will want to ask questions about one or more of the following areas:

a) The value of the benefit.
b) Cost of the benefit to the employee.
c) Overall satisfaction with the benefit.
d) Its ease of use.

In some cases (health insurance, for example), you may want to get opinions about several or even all four of these factors.

Using a five-level Likert scale, list survey options as: strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree. Other common Likert scale options include extremely satisfied, very satisfied, moderately satisfied, dissatisfied and extremely dissatisfied. Here are examples of the kinds of questions you'll want to consider:

a) How valuable is our current medical and dental plan to you?
b) How satisfied are you with our 401(k) savings plan?
c) If we were to open an on-site child care facility, how valuable would such a benefit be to you?
d) Please rate the quality of the (food, customer service, nutritional value, variety) of the employee dining room.
e) How valuable are the employee discounts we offer to area attractions?
f) How easy to use is our medical savings account program?
g) How satisfied are you with the employee fitness benefit we offer?

Also, ask survey participants to do a "forced ranking" in which they rate the value of each individual benefit relative to other offerings. This will lend valuable perspective to your cost/benefit decisions about future plan improvements.

For example:
Please rank, from 1 to 7, the following benefits in terms of their relative value to you. Rank the most valuable benefit as No. 1 and the least valuable as No. 7:

a) Sabbatical program
b) Medical/dental plan
c) Child care facility
d) Pension plan
e) 401(k) savings plan
f) Medical savings account
g) Employee fitness subsidy

Other more specific questions about certain benefits also may be useful. For example, ask participants to rate the quality of customer service they have received from your medical plan provider or other providers of services.

Once the questions have been asked, we would strongly recommend that you share the results of the survey with those who participated, within a reasonable time (30 to 45 days maximum). Then you need to act on the input you've received. Communicate clearly and honestly which changes have and will be made and which items will remain the same, along with credible explanations of the rationales behind those decisions.

Most employees will better appreciate your overall benefits package if they clearly grasp the costs and perceived value of individual benefits.


[Source: Richard Hadden and Bill Catlette, co-authors, Contented Cows Give Better Milk, www.contentedcows.com, September 19, 2006.]