The Pros and Cons of Employee Engagement Surveys

Are employee engagement surveys the key to happier employees or just another HR trend?

Here at Franchise Business Review, we get to work with hundreds of leaders focused on people data. Employee engagement surveys are the foundation for building and maintaining a positive organizational culture, but we recognize that some think of surveys as just another “to do” item to check off a list. So before you jump in to send a survey to your employees, it’s important to consider the pros AND the cons, and to understand what you want to accomplish BEFORE you ask your team to take the time to participate. We’re going to break down the real pros and cons of employee engagement surveys before you decide if they’re worth your time.

What Are Employee Engagement Surveys?

Employee engagement surveys are a tool used by leadership and Human Resources (HR) teams to measure how satisfied and connected employees feel within their organization. Surveys provide insights into workplace culture, satisfaction and morale, team dynamics, and alignment with company goals. By gathering formal feedback from employees, leaders can identify areas to celebrate, address challenges, and take steps to improve employee satisfaction, retention, and overall performance.

The Pros of Employee Engagement Surveys

Employee surveys can create a positive impact at every level of your organization when managed thoughtfully. Let’s start with some of the benefits of asking your team for feedback. 

1. Insight into Employee Sentiment
Surveys are a way to gather actionable insights into the employee experience—how employees feel about their role, their manager, leadership, and the organization. Instead of relying just on what your managers say their team is feeling, the survey gathers feedback directly from employees on what you’re doing well and where you can improve or better support them. 

2. Improved Employee Retention
Survey data enables you to spot employee pain points like burnout, communication gaps, or lack of resources early on so you can address them before they lead to turnover. Keeping your top players engaged strengthens performance and keeps your business moving forward.

3. Increased Productivity
Both Gallup and Harvard Business Review have shared research that high employee engagement results in increased productivity from 21-30%. When employees are engaged, they’re more likely to invest the energy and effort it takes to achieve your organization’s goals. Surveys give you the metrics you need to keep a pulse on engagement and how it is impacting productivity, either positively or negatively.

4. Data-Driven Decisions
Survey results enable leadership to make informed decisions grounded in employee experience instead of relying on gut feelings or isolated complaints. Feedback can be used to identify where to focus your efforts and resources to drive the most meaningful change based on the experience and needs of the majority of the employees. 

5. Benchmarking
Understanding how your franchise organization compares to other franchises provides meaningful insights into where you’re outperforming other teams—a valuable tool to recruit new employees—or where opportunity exists to improve support or employee experience in underperforming areas.

6. Builds Trust and Accountability
When employees see the leadership team is actively listening and acting on their feedback, it strengthens trust and reinforces a culture of transparency and collaboration in the organization.

7. Promotes Inclusion
Surveying the entire team gives every employee a voice, not just the loudest or the favorites. This ensures a more complete and unbiased understanding of the employee experience and team sentiment. 

8. Improved Communication
Surveys open up two way dialogue between employees and management making it easier to address concerns and align expectations moving forward.

The Cons of Employee Engagement Surveys

1. Risk of Low Participation Rates
Employees may be skeptical or not believe they can truly participate anonymously. This could reduce participation (or the team being honest with their feedback).

2. Lack of Follow-Through on Action Plans
If the leadership team isn’t prepared to respond or act on survey results, it could lead to low morale. You’ve set the expectation that you care by asking for feedback, then silence. Employees feel more frustrated, and feel their time was wasted giving feedback.

3. Survey Fatigue
If you overuse surveys to get feedback from the team, or the survey is time-consuming for employees to complete, it can lead to disengagement or low participation.

4. Costs and Resources for Implementation
Significant time and financial investment could be required to design, administer, analyze, and act on the survey.

5. Bad Timing
Launching during busy or stressful periods of the business could lead to lower participation or the feedback is overshadowed by how employees feel with added pressure.

6. Leadership Cherry Picks Positive Feedback
If leadership only highlights good feedback and ignores or downplays the rest, employees will see through it. Spinning a “we’re doing great” narrative and not addressing real issues damages trust more than not surveying at all. 

7. Negative Feedback
Survey results could expose leadership or systemic issues that could require significant organizational changes. Leadership teams could feel overwhelmed by the negative responses and get defensive, rather than looking at the constructive comments and finding ways to use the data.

8. Unrealistic Expectations
Employees could assume immediate changes are coming, which could lead to frustration if improvements require a longer timeframe to communicate and roll out. 

Best Practices for Conducting Employee Engagement Surveys

It’s important to weigh the pros and cons carefully before launching a survey. Fortunately, many of the cons can be overcome by following best practices for conducting employee surveys. If your team is on board, these tips can help you maximize survey effectiveness. 

• Establish leadership buy-in. Involve each department head in the survey process. Share why you are conducting the survey, what you hope to accomplish, and how you plan to use and respond to the feedback. Having all your teams aligned on the value of the survey will ensure everyone is encouraging participation and knows what to expect.

• Evaluate timing. Choose a time when employees have space to reflect and thoughtfully participate. Expect the data collection to last 2-3 weeks and give your team a week or two to digest before you report back to the team on findings and next steps.

• Ensure anonymity. Employees won’t be honest, and may not participate in a survey at all, if they don’t believe their feedback is anonymous. Using an unbiased third party to administer the survey can help reassure them that their feedback is completely confidential.

• Communicate to the team in advance. Explain WHY you’re asking for feedback, what they can expect after the survey is completed, and how their constructive, anonymous feedback can help the organization continuously improve.

• Design a concise, well-structured survey. Creating a survey yourself requires a significant amount of research to ensure you word questions properly, avoid leading or biased questions, and end up with measurable data. Using a third-party platform that specializes in surveys is well-worth the investment to make sure you end up with data that you can actually use to measure engagement.

• Share the results with employees and involve them in action planning. Once the survey wraps, thank employees for their participation and identify communication channels to share the results, whether that’s at a staff meeting, a town-hall style meeting, a video, or email. Acknowledge what’s going well, where there’s room for improvement, and how you plan to address challenges. Invite additional feedback and encourage managers to involve employees in working on department-level action plans.

• Follow up with measurable improvements based on survey findings. Keep engagement high by conducting the survey annually and implementing regular pulse surveys to measure the effectiveness of the action plans and show progress.

When Are Employee Engagement Surveys Not the Right Choice?

Employee engagement surveys have the potential to drive real change, but only if leadership is prepared to listen and act. When done correctly, they can uncover valuable insights, strengthen culture, and boost retention. But when a survey is used as a performative gesture rather than a true effort to improve, they can backfire in a big way. Let’s look at a common scenario where a survey does more harm than good. 

A company is struggling with low morale, high turnover, and frustrated employees. People feel overworked, unheard, and uncertain about their future in the company. The leadership team senses the tension and decides to roll out an engagement survey to show they care. 

Employees are eager for change and take the time to provide honest, constructive feedback. They highlight challenges like workload, lack of accountability on their team, and poor communication. They assume that by sharing their concerns, the leadership team will acknowledge them and take action.

And then…. silence.

Weeks pass with no response. Leadership never acknowledges the results, and nothing changes. Employees begin to resent the process. Instead of feeling heard, they now feel dismissed. They assume their input is not valued. Or worse, that the leadership didn’t care enough to try to fix the problems. 

The damage? Trust erodes even further. Engagement drops. Turnover increases with the top performers leading the charge. The next time leadership asks for feedback, the employees won’t bother. 

The lesson? If you don’t have the time, resources, or willingness to act on feedback, don’t conduct the survey. It will do more harm than good. Instead, focus on smaller conversations, focus groups, or leadership transparency before rolling out a full survey.

Is an Employee Engagement Survey Right for Your Organization? 

Employee engagement surveys can be a game-changing tool for improving culture, retention, and productivity, but only if they are done right. The biggest benefits include data-driven insights and fostering trust. However, common pitfalls like a lack of follow through and survey fatigue can make surveys a waste of time, or even erode morale. 

Before launching, ask yourself:

• • • Do we have leadership buy-in and a plan to act on feedback?
    • Is now the right time for employees to provide meaningful input? 
    • Can we ensure anonymity to encourage honest responses? 
    • Are we confident that the survey is well-designed and concise?
    • Do we have resources to follow up with action? 

If you feel confident in these areas then an employee engagement survey is the best investment you can make in your people this year. 

 Evaluate Your Readiness

Not sure where to start? Franchise Business Review specializes in helping organizations execute employee engagement surveys effectively. Check out our Employee Engagement Survey Solutions for more details or schedule a quick demo for a walk-through of the types of questions we ask and our survey reporting platform. 

By taking these steps, you can turn feedback into actionable improvements that strengthen your team and business. 

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