Let me start by saying that at Ephox we have never really used 'employee surveys'. Whether it be to figure out buying decaffeinated or full strength coffee, gauge employee satisfaction or do 360 degree reviews we have relied on good old-fashioned communication: phone, email or a face-to-face chat.
The closest we have come is a self appraisal form that we use for annual reviews. The form asks questions such as: "What do I feel are opportunities for growth and improvement in this position?" and "Are there any changes I would like to see made in my job that would improve my effectiveness?" As a manager I know that I value the feedback and constructive conversations it prompts.
To try and take this adhoc review process to the next level we signed up for SuccessFactors. They offer a performance management solution which incorporated goal setting, performance reviews, compensation management and a lot more.
But... the complexity of SuccessFactors got the better of us. 18 months on and it still goes unused. In fairness, our company is still recovering from Post-NetSuite Implementation Stress Disorder. At this stage I am unwilling to unleash another difficult-to-use system. I came to the view that the system for managing quarterly objectives, bonus setting and performance reviews can, and probably should, be done in Word or Excel files in a company of 25 staff.
Lately I have run into some more lightweight approaches that might work just that bit better than good old MS Office.
The first was the realization that our survey software tool SurveyMonkey has a range of pre-canned surveys that might be a useful starting point. They offer 360 degree reviews, performance appraisals and more. At first glance the surveys looked quite good, can be customized and would be very easy to setup. For a laugh, feel free to fill out a survey I prepared in about 3 minutes.
The second tool I stumbled on was an interesting service called Rypple. Rypple is the Twitter of 360 degree reviews. It lets you ask 100 character questions of contacts who reply anonymously. It seems like a great idea for adhoc queries of coworkers. Like "decaf or full strength?"... although I suspect I know the answer to that one already.
The final tool I have seen but not used would be the ability to easily create forms that submit Google Spreadsheets.
I look forward to seeing which, if any, of these approaches offer an improvement.
