The Value of Third-Party Administered Employee Satisfaction Surveys
Article by Vance Marriner, Research Analyst at RMS
These are challenging times across the American workplace for both employers and employees. A January 2026 study from Gallup found that only 31% of U.S. domestic employees were actively engaged at work. The causes cited for low engagement were many: workers feeling that employers don’t care about them, communication clarity issues, feeling disrespected, confusion about work expectations, and concerns about organizational transparency.
The costs of low employee engagement are both direct and indirect. Organizations with low employee engagement are more likely to experience decreased productivity, low morale, increased absenteeism, and a stressful work environment. In addition, these organizations experience higher employee turnover, which increased their costs in terms of recruitment and onboarding activities, and ultimately customer dissatisfaction.
There are no easy fixes for employee engagement, but to understand and improve it, good actionable data is required. For organizations that are serious about improving their processes and maintaining a high-quality, engaged workforce, employee surveys have long been recognized as a crucial tool in gathering the data needed to advance those outcomes. Getting feedback from employees by surveying them regularly can provide a wide variety of positive benefits, including:
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Gauging employee “real-time” sentiment
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Uncovering workplace issues that cause low engagement
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Providing data to inform and guide future decisions
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Providing valuable feedback to managers and supervisors
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Improving the workplace culture by demonstrating that the organization is open to feedback
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Establishing the organization-wide benchmarks to track improvements over time
Considering these workforce realities, your organization may be currently considering conducting an employee experience survey. If that is the case, it might be tempting to try to design and administer the survey in-house, but that approach is highly unlikely to yield the benefits described earlier. To get the most out of an employee satisfaction survey project, it is best to use the services of an independent third-party research vendor.
The most important reason to avoid DIY employee surveys is the issue of anonymity. You won’t get completely truthful feedback from employees if they believe that their individual answers can be traced back to them. A survey conducted under that sort of suspicion will only yield dishonest or partial answers and increase the levels of cynicism and distrust in the workplace. It’s not enough to simply promise anonymity; employees need to see a transparent process with true safeguards that protect their identities. That is much easier to ensure when the data is being collected and analyzed by researchers from outside your organization.
There are other good reasons to entrust your employee satisfaction survey to a third-party research provider. Such firms are experienced in the details of survey design, administration, and analysis. Those are all time-consuming activities, and skill sets that are lacking in most in-house HR or management offices. Many organizations, especially small and medium-sized firms, simply don’t have the time or the internal resources to devote to creating an appropriate survey instrument, managing the distribution of the survey, performing the quantitative analysis of the results, and creating a comprehensive report for top management.
But even if your firm did have the in-house resources to do all that work, you would still lack one of the most important ingredients that can only come from an external third-party researcher: objectivity.
Good research starts with good questions. In composing an employee survey script, some essential questions might be things you’d be tempted to leave out – either out of fear that your organization won’t score well in that area, or simply out of a subjective assumption that it isn’t relevant. It’s essential to find out what your employees think is important and not just try to confirm senior management’s assumptions. It must also be noted that it’s important to invite feedback on your organization’s strengths as well as areas that can be improved. Using a survey instrument created by an impartial outside organization increases the likelihood that the right questions will be asked.
Objectivity is also crucial in the analysis and reporting of results. Performing those tasks internally could lead to biased analysis, omission of potentially unpleasant or embarrassing findings, and skewed interpretations of the story the data is ultimately telling. A third-party research provider bypasses all those pitfalls and will give you impartial analysis informed by the experience of research organizations across industries, summarized in a professional report package.
If you are interested in finding out more about how an employee satisfaction survey could benefit your organization, contact Sage Almstead, Business Development Coordinator at Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) and learn about our new EPIC Employee Satisfaction Survey. You can reach Sage at [email protected] or 315-635-9802 x 206.
RMS Relational Information:
Market Research: In-House or Third Party?
How Market Research Supports Your Grant Writing Initiatives
3 Questions to Ask Before You Start Your Next Market Research Project
About the Author – Vance Marriner
Vance Marriner brings over two decades of experience in market research and analytics across a wide range of industries including higher education, technology and media. He has taught as a part-time instructor of advertising at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, as well as being an adjunct instructor at Oswego since 2013, teaching Marketing Principles, Consumer Behavior, and Marketing Management.
Interested in conducting employee surveys or additional market research projects with RMS?
Contact our Business Development Coordinator Sage Almstead at [email protected] or call 1-866-567-5422.
About RMS
Research & Marketing Strategies, Inc. (RMS) is a full-service market research firm in Central New York. Formed in 2002, RMS helps organizations that are looking to know more about their customers and/or potential customers. We conduct surveys, focus groups, mystery shopping, studies, and analyses. Each project is customized and gets personal attention so that actionable, data-driven findings are delivered. RMS has a reputation for getting results. We offer an independent, professional means to conduct telephone, on-line, and mail surveying, as well as in-depth interviews, intercept interviews, and participant recruitment. We also host discussion groups through QualiSight, our onsite call center and focus group facility. We have a proven reputation for successfully recruiting and moderating focus groups, community forums, and town meetings.