An organizational diagnostic is a tool used to surface key information in order to take action on a problem within an organization. The power of the Entromy platform helps to highlight themes and insights as a critical first step towards moving an organization forward in a positive direction.
The structure and format of the survey is important to consider from the beginning. We recommend including an appropriate mix of open-ended questions, Likert scale questions (i.e., fixed answer), and organizational network analysis questions (ONA) (i.e., list select or collaboration questions) to achieve a powerfully successful engagement survey.
Through our experience with working with nearly 400+ clients, we recommend the following six guiding principles based off of our carefully curated Organizational Health Baseline assessment question set.
#1 Understand the key metrics to measure and track through the right balance of fixed-answer, open-ended and organizational network analysis questions.
Fixed answer questions are great for highly quantifiable tracking and measuring progress against key initiatives. For example, a fixed question may ask “This company embraces innovation,” or “Our leadership team members make good decisions.” Survey takers are prompted to answer these questions on a 6-point Likert scale, from strongly disagree to strongly agree.
Open-ended questions encourage survey takers to provide insights that will later output into with extremely rich feedback. Through our AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) embedded within the Entromy technology, the responses to these open-ended questions are tracked and prioritized in order of importance, with each comment assigned a cumulative score based on popularity.
ONA questions also known as collaboration or list select questions ask for survey participants to influential individuals within the workplace. For example, one of our standard collaboration questions is “Who do you reach out to for help in solving complex, work-related problems?” ONA questions are critical to understand the key influencers within an organization and helps business leaders to visualize employee relationships and see the flow of communication and information-sharing within their company.
To create the right balance between all question types, we recommend 60-70% fixed answer questions, 30-40% open-ended or ONA questions (on average) for a 10–20-minute survey. Generally speaking, fixed answer questions take ~15 seconds to answer, while open ended and ONA questions are about ~1 min on average. While fixed answer and open-ended questions can be part of more frequent monthly or quarterly surveys, ONA questions are best asked semi-annually or once a year.
#2 Ensure questions are only asking participants to evaluate a single topic. Be careful to avoid combining two topics into a single question and creating confusion.
For example:
Not recommended: “Our leadership team effectively balances priorities and effectively communicates changes in company direction”
This question is in fact asking for the participants opinion on two topics: leadership balancing priorities and leadership’s ability to communicate changes in priorities
Recommended: create two questions
“Our leadership team effectively balances priorities”
“Our leadership team effectively communicates changes in company direction”
#3 Take time to clarify the language that will resonate with your team.
Entromy provides recommended starting question templates and recommendations, but it’s critical that the wording of the question reflects the organization’s common vernacular. The wording of questions can and should be customized to reduce any confusion for the participant. For example, rather that the common use of “company,” is “organization,” “association,” or “firm” more appropriate? Similarly, should questions refer to “customers” or to “clients” based on the organization’s line of business?
One of the most common questions that arise are around survey questions regarding feedback for leadership. Participants often ask for clarification on how to define “leadership.” For example, the common question: “Our leaders focus efforts and resources on the most critical issues.” Participants often ask, who is included in leadership? Is this my direct manager, my department leader, or the Executive team?
Helping to clarify leadership for these types of questions greatly reduces confusion and leads to more effective feedback for the management teams. We recommend doing so by clarifying these types of questions, for example:
“My manager focuses efforts and resources on the most critical issues.”
“My department leadership team (for the department most relevant to my work) focuses efforts and resources on the most critical issues.”
“Our Executive Leadership team focuses efforts and resources on the most critical issues.”
#4 Determine the appropriate length of the survey.
The length of the survey is primarily driven by frequency.
Initial diagnostic or annual survey: For initial, first-time diagnostic, or for an annual-based survey, our recommended survey length is ~20 minutes. 20 minutes equates to ~30-40 fixed answer questions and 10-15 open-ended or nomination questions.
Quarterly or semi-annual survey: ~15 minutes, with a similar mix questions as an annual survey.
Monthly or weekly pulse check: 5-10 minutes, primarily fixed answer questions with one or two open-ended questions.
#5 Establish the user dimensions that will be most valuable for reporting and insights in advance.
It is important to understand where critical differences in employees’ experiences exist within an organization. These hypotheses and subsequent confirmations through data are highly influential to help establish a best-in-class organizational health diagnostic.
It is often critical to understand differences in results based on various demographic data points i.e., region/country, tenure, department, function, etc. While all this information can be incorporated later, we find it valuable to plan before a survey launch into the areas that will uncover and test hypotheses of the organization’s most critical areas for focus.
For example, if you believe new employee onboarding and training is important and an area for improvement, it is highly relevant to include a user dimension that looks at tenure to separate new employee’s experiences vs employees with 20+ years with the company
#6 Ensure the questions you are asking are actionable and controllable.
The main goal of an organizational health diagnostic is to gather as much information about the organization as possible and as deeply as possible from the voice of the employees. With that said, it is critical to relay a message of gratitude and acknowledgement to your employees that “we heard your feedback, it is important to us, and we are going to learn from it”. In encouraging your employees to be candid, you are also communicating to your teams that you plan to incorporate their feedback into the company direction, investment, organizational structure, etc.
At Entromy, we recommend having a plan to cascade feedback from the top to the bottom of the organization and establishing a plan on how the survey feedback will impact the organization’s culture and direction. While the action planning most likely will take place after the survey results have concluded, it’s important to keep this future planning stage in mind when establishing the questions to ask in advance. The majority of questions need to focus on areas where senior leadership are enabled to create new initiatives to address employee concerns and/or organizational needs.
Learn more
Having worked with nearly 400+ organizations, Entromy has worked to established best-in-class organizational diagnostics for clients embracing a range of transitions: rapidly growing and focused on scale, recently acquired, senior or CxO leadership changes, incorporating new acquisitions, and planning for upcoming organizational restructurings.
Contact support@entromy.com to learn more or speak with one of our Customer Success representatives.