A DIY Employee Engagement Survey With a Hint of AI Magic (Part 1/3)

Guest series

Mister Editorial is pleased to present an exclusive three-part series from Frank Dias that explores how a solo communicator can effectively run an employee engagement survey with the help of artificial intelligence. Frank breaks down his step-by-step approach to building and executing a survey aligned with business priorities, using AI tools to streamline tasks such as question development, data analysis, and reporting. He highlights the importance of AI in augmenting human expertise, emphasizing that communicators can use it to boost efficiency, save time, and generate actionable insights.

And now, over to Frank…

Who am I?

My name is Frank Dias. I’m an employee communications professional with 15+ years of experience across diverse industries from retail, health, nonprofit, charity, financial services, insurance, technology, and entertainment. 

I love crafting impactful strategies, narratives, and experiences aligned with business priorities. I specialise in global internal communication and engagement, change management, and business partnering. 

Over the last 18 months, I’ve been pioneering the integration of AI into my communication workflows. I recently launched Ai x Comms Lab, a consultancy that aims to help free the imagination of internal communications folk to be more creatively minded through upskilling and building confidence in using AI to enhance their personal and professional life.

I’ve recently joined The Adecco Group as their Comms Lead for their AI strategic transformation programme.

I regularly share my insights on LinkedIn and will soon launch my IC+AI filtered e-magazine, /REMIXING comms. 👉 Subscribe here!

Let’s dive in…

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In this three-part behind-the-scenes series, I focus on one of my IC+AI use cases: the employee engagement survey.

• I’ll break down my workflow across which bits are person-owned and which parts are AI-augmented/enhanced. I’ll highlight what I did and how I did it. 

Person-centred ownership

You should always be at the centre of orchestrating and agreeing on the final output before going live with it. Using the right AI tools with the right jobs to speed up the process should give you more time to think strategically and focus on the value-adding stuff. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the tools and yourself is vital to get the most out of the effort.

Responsible AI usage

In this use case, I used ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude. ChatGPT allows the user to turn off the ability to train its model with your data. You can limit Gemini’s use of your data but not turn it off. Claude’s default is to not use your data. 

With all these platforms, though, you never truly know the truth. Our role is to understand and responsibly use AI ethically, legally, etc. Scrutinise the data you plan to input into these tools before you do it (remove any personal, confidential or sensitive data). There’s plenty of good guidance and videos online to help you learn and improve your behaviours. Educate yourself first and use AI per your workplace’s policy and guidance.

A quick note: I could experiment and use any AI models in my work. Many of you may only be allowed to use approved AI tools for your workplaces. The steps I took should translate with some adaptation to your tools, so you can replicate and remix to suit your needs. I experimented with multiple AI models as there’s no one model to rule them all. All models have strengths and weaknesses for different uses. I’m also a paid subscriber to ChatGPT and Claude to have I want full access to the capability of these tools.

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🧗 The challenge!

Is it possible to run an employee engagement and communications survey with the help of AI to a global 3,000+ employee audience to provide valuable, actionable insights to the company’s leaders aligned with their priorities?

I’ll tackle this challenge in three parts:

• Part 1: Survey Development & Feedback 

• Part 2: Survey Execution, Communications & Data Collection 

• Part 3: Analysis, Action Planning, Reporting & Presentation

Let’s get to it.

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Part 1: Survey Development & Feedback 

I built my own employee comms and engagement survey from the ground up and linked it to the business priorities of my last workplace. As a solo communicator, I invited AI to join me on this adventure. 

I had no budget, which led me to create and run the survey in-house. This would be a fun AI use case experiment, with the actual output to provide the CEO with data-backed insights and fine-tuned recommended actions to support the business priorities.

I wanted to gather some updated communications and audience data to help me solidify my internal communications strategy and priorities and provide leaders with valuable insights linked to their priorities. Action is better than inaction. I needed to fill a void to benefit my insight needs, so I just got on with it.

🏎️ It took me less than a month (28 days) to complete the workflow with AI’s help. 

😯 I estimate that AI helped me save ~14 days of extra work.

Here’s my estimated workflow breakdown…