By Andrea Spade, Director of Organizational Effectiveness, Kelly

Employee engagement surveys are common, but meaningful change is rare. At Kelly, we’ve learned that quick, thoughtful listening beats long, infrequent assessments. Our pulse surveys take five minutes or less, but the impact lasts far longer.

The need for effective engagement strategies has never been more urgent. Research on employee engagement surveys shows companies that regularly seek employee feedback have turnover rates 14.9% lower than those that don't. Yet 63% of workers feel their employers have ignored their voice, highlighting a critical gap between data collection and action. For HR professionals and people leaders, the challenge isn’t just gathering feedback. It’s about using that feedback to drive meaningful actions.

Use surveys as your diagnostic tool

Think of engagement surveys as organizational thermometers. They tell you if there's a problem and roughly where it might be—the starting point for deeper investigation.

When a doctor sees you have a fever, they ask about other symptoms, explore possible causes, and develop a treatment plan. Similarly, survey data indicates where to focus your attention. The real work begins after the results come in.

At Kelly, we follow a structured process:

1. The pulse survey opens for two weeks
2. Within a week of closing, results are published for senior leaders to review
3. The entire organization receives communication showing scores, trends, and initial insights
4. Directors and above get early access to team-specific data
5. All people leaders receive their team's results
6. Leaders conduct ACT conversations with their teams to identify priorities and next steps

This process ensures data quickly reaches the people who can take action, while maintaining transparency across the organization.

Want to see what this looks like in practice? Here's how we turn engagement metrics into real retention strategies.

Design employee engagement surveys that boost participation & insight

The structure of your surveys directly impacts their effectiveness. We've found several practices that boost both participation and actionability:

• Keep them short. Our quarterly pulses take five minutes or less to complete, dramatically improving the employee experience compared to lengthy annual surveys.
• Include open-ended questions. Survey data on employee feedback participation shows questions with free response fields yield at least 60% higher participation. We always include space for employees to share what's on their mind in a more free-form way.
• Maintain anonymity. Our survey data is completely confidential. This isn't just about protecting privacy – it's about encouraging honesty. Our partner holds the data so we can't even accidentally access identifying information.
• Balance consistency and flexibility. Some questions appear in every pulse to track trends over time, while others rotate to explore different topics. This keeps surveys fresh while providing comparable data.
• Time them strategically. We schedule our pulses immediately after our quarterly company updates, allowing us to gauge how well employees understand organizational performance and priorities.

Turn data into action

The most critical part of our process happens after the results come in. That's when we shift from collecting data to facilitating conversations and begin closing the employee feedback loop to spark real change.

We call these "ACT conversations" because they focus on turning insights into action. These discussions happen at the team level, where leaders and team members collectively:

• Review the results together
• Identify what matters most to the specific team
• Select priorities to focus on for the quarter
• Develop action plans that address team needs

These conversations create meaningful change. A leader might discover their team struggles with something that didn't appear in the broader organizational results. Or they might learn that while an issue affects the whole organization, their team needs a unique approach to address it.

Find big wins in small, targeted changes

Often, the most meaningful improvements come from surprisingly simple changes that wouldn't have been visible without structured listening.

For example, one of our pulse surveys revealed that while employees valued our remote-first work policy, many felt disconnected from peers, career opportunities, and the broader organization. They weren't asking to return to the office—they wanted better ways to build connections while working remotely.

This insight led to targeted initiatives to foster connection in a distributed work environment. Without our regular pulse surveys, we might have misinterpreted decreased engagement as a rejection of remote work rather than an opportunity to enhance it.

Another pulse helped us recognize that employees couldn't clearly see how our various growth and development programs fit together. While we had excellent resources available, we needed to better communicate their connections. This led to our "Pathways to Growth" initiative that provides a more cohesive view of career development at Kelly.

Creating a culture of action

For engagement surveys to truly make a difference, employees need to see that their feedback leads to change. Companies build credibility by:

1. Communicating results transparently. We share summary findings with the entire organization so everyone sees the big picture.
2. Acting quickly on insights. Our quarterly cycle means we can respond to emerging issues before they become entrenched problems.
3. Closing the feedback loop. We explicitly connect changes to survey feedback, helping employees see the impact of their participation.
4. Empowering local action. While some initiatives happen at the organizational level, we emphasize the critical role managers play in addressing team-specific needs.

This approach builds trust over time. When employees see their input leads to meaningful change, participation increases and feedback becomes more candid and constructive.

Handling sensitive feedback

Even with anonymous surveys, sensitive issues sometimes emerge. We've developed processes to handle these situations with care:

• Our survey partner automatically flags responses containing keywords related to sensitive topics
• These flags trigger review by our employee relations team
• While maintaining anonymity, we can identify which part of the organization the feedback came from

This system ensures serious concerns receive appropriate attention while preserving confidentiality.

Most importantly, we emphasize to our leaders that the goal is never to identify who said what. The focus should always be on understanding themes and addressing concerns, not conducting investigations.

Constant improvement through employee feedback

An ineffective survey strategy can turn into a passive data collection exercise, but well-designed engagement surveys transform feedback into a force for growth. Success requires strategic timing, thoughtful question design, and—most importantly—visible follow-through.

The most successful organizations treat employee feedback as a continuous dialogue rather than a periodic assessment. They focus less on achieving perfect scores and more on understanding how to design employee engagement surveys that identify specific opportunities for meaningful improvement.

When employees see their input directly shapes their work experience, engagement naturally follows. This creates a positive reinforcement cycle where better participation leads to better insights, driving better actions and ultimately better retention.

In today's workplace, the companies that listen effectively gain a powerful competitive advantage—not just in talent acquisition, but in innovation, adaptability, and long-term performance.

You've got the data, now what?
Explore practical ways to use employee engagement metrics to strengthen retention, improve culture, and create real connection.