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Summary of nine steps to conducting a do-it-yourself safety perception survey

In this Blog we outline the nine steps to conducting a do-it-yourself safety perception survey. The blog is a summary of one of our published articles that can be found here: http://compasshealthandsafety.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1608&action=edit. There are nine steps to conducting a do-it-yourself safety perception survey. Most articles you read describe fewer steps but we focus only on do-it-yourself safety perception surveys and have found there are more. We describe the steps in detail in our book Yes You Can, Conduct Your Own Safety Perception Survey that contains 203 pages of instruction on surveying. I believe it is the only do-it-yourself- instructional safety perception survey book in existence.

At Compass, we understand that it is often prohibitive to hire a survey consultant to conduct a safety perception or safety climate survey. That is one of the main reasons more companies do not conduct safety perception surveys: it is just too expensive to do so. Some larger companies have been able to benefit from this measurement approach simply because they can afford to. Compass exists for the sole purpose of making this approach affordable for all companies. We believe one should first check the climate for safety before attempting to implement basic safety elements. If the climate is not receptive, companies will not have success implementing the basic elements.

Here is a very short summary of our articles and our book on how to conduct a do-it-yourself safety perception survey.

1. Develop – first you have to develop a survey. Using the Compass process, we help you develop your survey. We often start with an in-house survey and work with you to modify it to suit your needs. We have a master question list that you can draw from to create your survey or you can use a survey that was created elsewhere. If you introduce your own survey questions we review them to ensure they are properly worded.
2. Sample – we help you determine the correct number and locations to sample. If you are a smaller company likely all employees and locations will be sampled. Some larger organizations need help determining a minimum sample size.
3. Test – surveys should be tested before they are administered to company wide. This is a great opportunity to find out what questions or terms may not be understood.
4. Communicate – the organization needs to be properly prepared for the survey. The company needs to ensure all respondents are aware of survey, the purpose of the survey, and what will happen with all of the data or findings once they are all in.
5. Administer – our surveys can be administered anywhere any time electronically. Our survey application is web-based. If the company prefers to have employees complete the survey in hard copy, Compass will guide them through the process.
6. Analyze – once all of the data is in, it is time to review the survey reports and analyze the findings. We provide guidance on what reports should be included and in how to interpret the findings.
7. Validate – one of the most costly parts of the survey process is the validation of some key findings. Survey consultants spend a great deal of time on money validating the scores to their survey questions. For this reason we solicit comments from our survey respondents. Their comments generally are sufficient to validate all survey scores.
8. Feedback – the worst thing a company can do is survey and then not provide at least a summary of the findings. We provide suggestions on creating an action plan and on how to provide survey feedback to your employees.
9. Re-evaluate – probably the most important step is to re-evaluate with another survey in the future. Your re-evaluation will tell you how successful you have been in carrying out the action plan of the previous step.

Companies that fail to conduct do-it-yourself safety perception surveys often do not get a second chance with their employees to credibly conduct another. Our purpose here at Compass is to make sure you succeed. Our goal is to make sure your company benefits from this measurement approach just like some of the larger safety excellent companies that use safety perception surveys on a regular basis.