As a business owner you understand that when it’s time to hire someone on a higher or more important job. You usually seek someone inside the organization and by promoting him or her, you give them that higher level seat. This is done to eliminate any chances of hiring from outside and demotivating the company employees. As an employee, if you see that there are no chances for promotion or career enhancement, you won’t be doing your job with proper attention and that can lead to poor performance. In order to make sure that the employees are satisfied with the training and career development opportunities the organization is providing them, Career Development Survey is used.

With the help of this survey program, HR department and the upper level management understands how the employees feel about these training and development programs and if there are ways to increase the effectiveness of these programs. Participants talk about their thoughts and how they feel about the opportunities that their employer has provided them for enhancing their careers. Unlike most of the survey programs in the market, this one is very simple and convenient both for the participants and evaluator. The questions added in the survey are quite easy and basic ones and it’s even easier to determine the progress of the development programs just by reviewing the answers.

Market practices for Career Development Survey:

Usually when you design such survey, you ask the employees to either take some time off of their busy routine at work or spare some personal time at home. Both of these options are fine but you should design the survey with the fact in mind that it shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes of the participant to complete it. This will keep their interest in the survey and they won’t get bored while working on the answers.
Rather than asking them to join you in a common room and take part in the survey, email the survey questionnaire to them and ask them to return the answers by completing the survey and printing it.
Most of the time, when employees know that they are being watched, they don’t speak freely of their minds. For this reason, you should ask them not to put their names on the survey sheet and keep it anonymous. This way you are still getting the answers but there is no way to track a specific answer, complain or suggestion to any of the employees.
It’s important that when you design the Career Development Survey, you review a couple of survey programs on the internet. By looking at some of the other programs designed by various organizations, you can understand what kind of questions to include in the survey and how to get optimum results from the participants. Evaluating and assessing the answers can also be learnt from the available survey programs on the internet.
Including a suggestion section in the survey is very crucial. This is the part usually kept at the end of the survey sheet. Here the employees are asked to speak freely of their minds and talk about anything they would like the management to know about. This can be as simple as appreciating the efforts of employer and HR department for the career development opportunities or something important like changing how the participants are chosen for the program and how they are evaluated.