HR exec Denise Shultz kept sending out employee surveys and getting back little or no response, until she hit on a way to get employees’ attention - and relevant feedback  (part of an ongoing series).

We like to survey our employees before making decisions about changes in benefits and the like. 

As we found out, however, you can ask the greatest survey questions in the world, but they’re useless if people don’t take the time to answer them.

You can understand how it goes. People are busy with their jobs and don’t want to take the time to sit down and fill out a survey. And of course, there’s the challenge of getting them to even notice the survey. 

All of that can make for a frustrating experience. 

One way to get their attention was to place the survey in the same envelope as the pay stub. We did that but still didn’t get a lot of responses. 

OK, desperate situations call for desperate measures. It was time to bribe them. 

A cookie for your thoughts

Our offer? We placed an additional note in the pay-stub envelope: Anyone who hands in a completed survey gets a small box of yummy cookies from a local bakery that everyone here loves.

Most people just couldn’t refuse the offer. After implementing the cookie deal, we saw the response rate run up to about 85%, more than enough on which to base our decisions. 

And now, people here want to know when we’re running the next survey - and cookie offer. 

(Denise Shultz, support services manager, Blue Mountain Medical Group, Walla Walla, WA) 

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Tags: feedback, pay stub, surveys