The employee survey cost is, quite naturally, a key consideration for any prospective buyers. And there is huge variance and diverse options to cosnider when you're looking to introduce a survey. The amount of employees, desired methodology, preferred tech, complexity and geography of the organisation are all determining factors that can have a large bearing on the overall cost.

So, when searching for an engagement survey provider it’s useful to have an idea of what kind of bang you can expect for your buck before you go out to the market.

The employee survey spectrum

First things first – what kind of employee survey or listening programme do you plan to run? Are you looking for a simple, no-frills survey for a team of 25 people or a complex, integrated one for a global team of a quarter of a million people?

Whether you’re at one end of this spectrum or the other, or most likely somewhere in between, will dictate the likely cost of introducing an employee engagement survey. And there is quite a range in what they can cost.

A guide to survey pricing

While we can’t predict exactly what you’ll pay, we’ve applied our knowledge of the employee survey market to put together a guide. This should give you a good insight into what kind of functions and features you could get for your budget.

Under £10,000

  • Fixed survey approach and questionnaire content
  • Standard, pre-defined survey reports
  • Little or no involvement from a consultant or project manager.

£10,000 – 25,000

  • Flexible survey content, with fixed survey tools
  • Reporting dashboards or flexible online reporting tools
  • Some involvement from consultants in either survey design or results interpretation
  • Some project support during implementation.

£25,000 – 50,000

  • Flexible survey content and tools
  • Reporting tools enabling detailed analysis by multiple users
  • Full service consultancy support in both survey design and post survey interpretation
  • Project managed implementation.

£50,000 – 100,000

  • Highly flexible survey tools with multiple survey methodologies and questionnaires
  • Powerful reporting tools for ‘deep-dive’ data analysis and interpretation
  • Provision of custom reporting elements such as business or manager reports
  • Full service consultancy support in stakeholder consultation, survey design and business wide analysis and action planning
  • Project managed implementation.

£100,000 and over

  • Integrated survey programmes, incorporating self-service questionnaires and ‘pulse’ surveys
  • Powerful reporting tools for deep-dive data analysis and interpretation
  • Provision of custom reporting elements such as business or manager reports
  • Consultancy partnership with support throughout the survey programme and in all post-survey interpretation, activities and communications
  • Dedicated project management during implementation.
ETS employee survey manager dashboard

Is it really worth investing in employee surveys?

Yes, it can be a significant investment - both in terms of time and cash. And the truth is that even the best employee surveys aren't a silver bullet for businesses. The real value and worth of a survey is in acting as a catalyst for business change.In terms of whether it's worth the necessary investment, there's compelling evidence that higher employee engagement leads to improved business performance. As you may expect, we're often asked by executives, "How can we measure the ROI or business impact of our engagement survey?" We've carried out linkage analysis and other post survey consultancy for various companies to help them to prove the tangible and measurable value of higher engagement levels. Here are a couple of good examples:

ITV

We worked with broadcaster ITV to explore what impact higher engagement was having on some other key business metrics for them. We found that higher engagement levels resulted in:

  • On average, 18 months longer job tenure, improving staff retention rates
  • Higher employee performance ratings.

M&S

Our employee survey work with M&S involved us exploring, with them, trends in teams with higher levels of employee engagement. Further analysis showed that:

  • Manager scores in highly engaged teams were, on average, +10% higher
  • Customer satisfaction was higher in stores with higher engagement.

What should you do next?

  1. Refer to our employee survey buyer’s guide and use it to inform what you do and don’t need
  2. Use this as the basis of the project brief you put together
  3. Speak with your HR peers; get advice and recommendations from trusted people in your network.