Survey in multiple countries
Conducting a survey with multilingual employees, and/or living and working in various countries can be a complicated process. Not only are you dealing with multiple languages, but also a diverse cultural reference and footprint. Additionally, the local economy influences the way employees experience (certain) subjects: if you are an employer in a country where high unemployment prevails, employees may value you higher than in a situation with greater alternative opportunities. Ideally you would like to conduct the survey in such a way that each organisational unit receives relevant results and are provided with the optimal tools to make the most of the outcomes.
Top 10 key issues
Whilst setting up your multinational survey framework, centralised decisions will have to be made that affect the whole organisation. Moreover, you need to decide which freedoms and responsibilities decentralised organisational units will maintain. Below you will find a brief checklist of 10 points that can be used in a multinational project setup:
1. Project management and planning
Would you prefer a central planning or is there the possibility for decentralised units to launch the project within a set period? It regularly occurs that the local project managers on these levels take on the responsibility for the project management. A central extranet platform ensures that the information is collected on one online portal. This can be viewed as a one stop shopping point for all phases of the project: respondent management, communication, results, and action planning.
2. Questionnaire
To what extent should decentralised organisational units be able to add specific questions? Additionally, should it be allowed to delete and/or change questions from the 'master questionnaire' (and if so, which)? In such a situation it is important that consistency is maintained in order to ensure internal comparisons.
3. Methodology
Is an organisational subunit free to choose a survey method (paper, online or both)? If a level of illiteracy is present, would qualitative research be more suitable? Are the required technical facilities and infrastructure accessible for all employees?
4. Communication
What freedoms and responsibilities do decentralised organisational units have in announcing the survey? Additionally, during the survey, what if the response rate is lower than expected? Who will be responsible for the internal communications and what channels will be used? To what extent will the results be centrally communicated and what role will be taken on by managers, HR Managers/employees from decentralised units?
5. Translation
Do you prefer to work with translation agencies or would you rather carry out translations under your own supervision? Perhaps you would rather make the translation the responsibility of the country (countries) in which your organisation operates. Effectory is also able to provide translation services, should they be needed.
6. Reports
To what extent is it important to align the reporting framework centrally? Which authority levels should be installed in order to ensure that each unit can view relevant findings? To what extent will the reports be specifically constructed for the decentralised country units?
7. Pulse surveys and spot checks
To what extent will it be possible for the various units to carry out an in-depth pulse survey or spot check? To what extent would you like to take this into account during your central survey setup?
8. Benchmarking
It is advisable to use a benchmark whilst carrying out a survey. A country-wide benchmark can advance the understanding if a low score is typical to a country or region. An alternative is a functional benchmark or industry benchmark. Would you like to allow each branch to choose its own benchmark? Would you like to, instead, use a standardised benchmark? On the website of our Global Employee Engagement Index™ you can find recent global benchmark figures. Effectory offers 200 questions, in 35 languages which can be used as a benchmark in 35 countries.
9. Action planning & best practice sharing
If your organisation operates in multiple countries, best practice sharing is an essential step in the action planning. In this case it is important that it is centrally decided which tools the organisation offers in order to practically work with the results.
10. Cost centre
It often occurs that a survey setup is centrally constructed with a certain level of flexibility for organisational units. In a case that an organisational unit requires more flexibility, you could choose to book these additional costs on the specific/relevant cost centre.
Organisational X-ray® survey
Effectory has extensive experience in setting up employee surveys with multinational organisations. Yearly, hundreds of thousands of employees from the 'top 500 organisations' are questioned. Your survey will be carried out by the Effectory International team, who are specialised in carrying out multilingual, multicultural and multinational surveys. This ensures you that your survey flawlessly connects to the complexity of your organisation, and you can utilize the best practices that are already in place within Effectory.