Employee survey benchmark data

Organisations can now compare the results of their employee surveys with a benchmark published by employee survey expert ETS. This information should help organisations decide what actions to take to improve employee morale in these difficult economic times. A guide on employee survey benchmark data is also available to download, which contains advice and more survey results.

Many UK businesses conduct employee surveys to uncover insights that can be used to make business decisions. Understanding these insights is more crucial in the current economic climate, where employees' satisfaction with many aspects of their working life seems to have fallen. Taking action will help companies to ride out the recession and thrive afterwards.

For example, in the last quarter of 2008, job security dropped 14% and confidence the company would meet its annual objectives plummeted by nearly a third (32%). If employers can find out what is making their workforce feel negative, and how strongly those feelings are held, they can decide how to improve the situation.

Compare employee survey results to identify the right actions to take

A key challenge with employee surveys is to draw the right conclusions from the large volume of responses.

An example is pay: a low score to a question about the fairness of pay may be a cause for concern. In fact, only a minority of employees are happy with their pay (45%) according to the ETS benchmark database. If more than 45% of employees in the reader’s organisation say that their pay is fair, their organisation is performing above average on this measure. How the organisation should respond to this situation will depend on the organisation's history, context and strategy.

The benchmark data below show the average employee view on four subjects including loyalty and satisfaction. Employers should consider taking action if their scores are below those shown. Further advice on using employee survey benchmark data is also available to download.

Statement
Average score (mean)
Percentage who agree
I intend to be still working for the Company in a year’s time
3.15
87%
Overall I am satisfied with working for the Company
3.08
87%
Senior management communicates everything we need to know from them
2.77
68%
I am satisfied with the performance appraisal system
2.59
62%

The results shown in the table were collected from hundreds of thousands of employees from 2006 to 2008 using employee surveys administered by ETS. Employees responded to a series of statements using a scale from 1 ('Strongly disagree') to 4 (Strongly agree'). The second column shows the average number of people agreeing to each statement.