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Stakeholder Surveys

In today’s complex business environment, organizations need to understand the attitudes and opinions of their stakeholders. Consultation and dialogue with stakeholders can enhance that understanding. Stakeholder surveys are a valuable tool to build that understanding.

Many organizations use stakeholder survey tools internally to monitor changes in employee attitudes over time and to compare attitudes across levels within the organization and between its different parts. Stakeholder surveys are also a valuable strategic tool to help organizations find out about the views of other key stakeholder groups, such as customers, civil society groups and the communities in which they operate.

At Stakeholder Research Associates, we work with organizations to ensure that their stakeholder surveys will create value by providing action opportunities and building ongoing dialogue with stakeholders.

At Stakeholder Research Associates, we help organizations explore the reasons they are undertaking a survey, the elements of a survey that ensure a successful outcome and the communications and other essential follow-up activities.

Why undertake a survey?
Surveys should not be undertaken lightly. Our experience suggests that people associated with organizations generally like taking part in surveys. They feel the survey is one way for them to communicate with the organization and give some feedback to management about its performance. However, companies should be aware that expectations will be raised by carrying out a survey. For example, if an organization has carried out an employee attitude survey, its employees will expect that the organization will respond to their concerns. At Stakeholder Research Associates, it is our experience that any organization that carries out a survey and then files the report away because it is not all good news is risking the quality of the relationship. Their employees are likely to feel they have been misled because they have gone to all the trouble to complete the survey questionnaire and then their views have been ignored.

What are the elements of a successful survey?
Organizations differ. Each has its own special characteristics. Our approach to surveys is to produce a questionnaire and conduct a survey that will address all the stakeholders’ issues. This means spending time talking with your organization to make sure that we develop a good understanding of your needs. It also means talking to a cross-section of people from your key stakeholder groups in interviews and focus group discussions to explore their concerns so that we can construct a tailor-made questionnaire for a particular survey. We will also draw on our extensive experience of the technical aspects of survey and questionnaire design, ensuring independence and transparency.

What follow-up and follow-through is important?
Not all survey feedback will be positive, but what anyone completing a questionnaire expects from a survey is that:

the results will be communicated, through presentations to key stakeholders, e.g., worker representatives in an employee attitude survey, articles in newsletters, data postings on an organization’s intranet (with the ability to analyze data), postings on the corporate website, publication in corporate reports
the organization will make a general commitment to respond to issues raised
the organization will launch specific initiatives to tackle those issues

Providing timely feedback of the results will convince people that the organization is committed to the relationship. Closely linked to publishing the results is a commitment to respond to the issues raised. This does not mean taking action hastily. Frequently organizations need to carry out additional consultation before deciding on a plan of action. But part of the commitment to respond is to give stakeholders a timescale so that they know when a response will be made. People realize that issues such as changing the culture of an organization cannot be carried out overnight. But, if the organization values the opinions of their stakeholders, carrying out a survey is a good starting point.

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Further reading:

Achieving Quality in Social Reporting: The role of surveys in stakeholder consultation (2002)