Dissemination of Results to Survey Respondents

The dissemination of survey results to your organization follows a carefully orchestrated communications plan. Our experience is that employees want to hear about the results from their own management, and they want to hear it more than once. This promotes better perceptions among employees about the utilization of survey results for positive change. It also results in better action plans. This is an excellent model for your organization and would be stressed in training for feedback and action planning.

Other communication channels will augment this process. For example, the top executive might send a letter to the homes of all employees thanking them for participating and outlining some general survey results and actions that your organization as a whole will be taking. Department or unit heads might do the same thing with their employees. A special newsletter or report might be distributed at the work place. Several articles could be inserted into regularly published bulletins, newspapers, or other print media. Early communications would stress issue identification and action plans. Later material would talk about progress in fixing problems, improving the organization, and changes that resulted from acting on survey results.

One of the roles of the Steering Committee is to craft carefully a communications plan and then execute it with spirit and intelligence. The internal communications and public relations resources at your organization can provide expert advice and give technical support to this plan. We can exploit print, broadcast, and electronic media to disseminate not only information, but communicate a message and an attitude as well.