Employers face different problems. Some struggle with talent, others simply can’t find employees, and others rack their brains on how to motivate them. In all cases, large sums are involved – even small companies spend hundreds of thousands or even millions annually on wages.
Every strategic investment by an employer in image or employee well-being is associated with significant expenses: businesses can either lose by it or, conversely, smartly investing can yield returns. How to make the right decision? It’s crucial to have a very good and accurate understanding of your situation as an employer, which is impossible without quality research.
WitMind® research scientific partner, Professor at Mykolas Romeris University, Head of Social Inclusion and Leadership Research Laboratory Prof. Dr. Agota Giedrė Raišienė points out that some surveys conducted in Lithuania (and published in the press) are actually of little value: essentially, they do not help companies make effective decisions, but mislead.
“The cost of misplaced trust in frequently conducted employer surveys can be particularly high. As you know, serious employer companies base their strategies on research, invest large sums of money, and rightly expect reliable results. It’s unfortunate that some surveys are conducted superficially and irresponsibly regarding statistical reliability. It is said that one spoon of tar spoils a barrel of honey, but it happens that you encounter a whole barrel of tar,” said the professor.
She has seen a survey of 1000 employer respondents conducted in Lithuania, where in the energy sector only… a couple of dozen employees were surveyed (across the whole country!), or, for example, indexes that were composed only from the data of companies surveyed by the company itself – such a dataset completely distorts reality.
WitMind® research scientific partner explains why the WitMind® national survey on a Lithuanian scale is so large (surveying even 3322): if sectoral slices in market research do not reach at least the minimum level of reliability of research results (min. 370 respondents in each sector), it is not wise to rely on its conclusions when making decisions for business. Talking about more serious insights based on sectoral slices is possible only when the sample of a national (all of Lithuania) survey reaches at least 3000 or 4000 respondents, depending on how many activity sectors the survey summaries cover.
Employer surveys that cannot compare your data with the market and your sector are already a thing of the past because they do not help understand how well you are competing for employees.
Critically important – high-quality respondent samples: if you want to compare yourself with your specific market, you need to have surveyed at least 370 respondents in it, and so on.
Comparability: if your employees answered one questionnaire and the comparative indicator was carried out according to another questionnaire – don’t blindly compare, but seek the help of an expert-analyst who would compare the questionnaires, perform calculations, and analysis to ensure accurate and high-quality comparability. If you are offered to compare with surveys already conducted by other companies, demand that the comparative surveys cover the entire market of your region or country, otherwise, such comparisons will mislead you.
