Employee survey results often draw attention to the lowest scores first. But the lowest score is not always the best place to start. Effective follow-up means identifying the issues that genuinely require attention while also understanding the strengths the team can build on.
Low scores can reveal friction, risks, or unmet needs. Strengths can show what is already working and which behaviors, practices, or conditions may help the team improve elsewhere. The goal is not to choose between problems and positives. It is to prioritize the right issues and use existing strengths to support improvement.
In this article, we explore how leaders can balance strengths and low scores when turning employee survey results into focused action.
Go to:
- Why the Lowest Survey Score Is Not Always the Best Place to Start
- When Low Scores Should Take Priority
- The Best Follow-Up Is Not Positive or Negative. It Is Focused
- The Best Follow-Up Is Not Positive or Negative. It Is Focused
Why the Lowest Survey Score Is Not Always the Best Place to Start
When working with employee survey results, managers often start with the lowest scores and turn them into action areas. That is understandable, especially when the results point to clear concerns that require attention.
But the lowest score is not always the most important place to start. A score may be low without being highly relevant to the team’s current situation, within the team’s influence, or strongly connected to the outcomes the organization is trying to improve.
Focusing only on what is wrong can also narrow the follow-up conversation. Employees may have valuable insight not only into what should change, but also into what already works well and should be protected or strengthened.
A stronger approach is therefore to look at both sides of the results: identify the issues that genuinely require attention and explore the strengths the team can build on.
When Low Scores Should Take Priority
A strengths-based approach should never become a reason to avoid difficult results.
If survey feedback points to serious concerns around workload, well-being, fairness, trust, leadership, or other conditions that may negatively affect employees, those issues need to be understood and addressed. The same is true when employees consistently describe a problem that leadership may find uncomfortable to discuss.
The point is not to replace problem-solving with positive thinking. It is to avoid assuming that every low score should automatically become an action area simply because it is low.
When low engagement scores point to a leader who needs additional support, our guide explains how to support leaders with low engagement scores.
From Low Scores to Leadership Success
Download our guide on how great leaders follow up — even when scores are tough.
What You Can Learn From Your Strongest Survey Results
A useful survey follow-up combines attention to problems with curiosity about strengths.
1. Identify What Cannot Be Ignored
Start with results or comments that point to significant concerns. Do not use a strengths-based approach to reframe away feedback that employees clearly believe requires attention.
Some issues should be addressed because of their seriousness, even if they are not the lowest-scoring items in the survey.
2. Discuss What Matters Most
Do not let score ranking make the decision for you. Bring the results into dialogue with employees and explore why certain themes matter, what may be behind them, and what the team can realistically influence.
How the leader handles that discussion matters. Difficult feedback is easier to explore when employees feel safe to speak openly. Read more about how survey follow-up can strengthen psychological safety.
3. Look for Strengths You Can Build On
Explore what employees believe the team already does well and why.
A strong result may reveal useful behaviors, routines, leadership practices, or ways of collaborating. Understanding what makes these areas successful can help the team protect them and, in some cases, apply the same principles to areas that need improvement.
4. Choose a Small Number of Priorities
The purpose of survey follow-up is not to create an action for every result.
Agree on a small number of areas that are relevant, realistic, and meaningful to employees. Be clear about what should improve, what should be preserved, and what the team can influence.
Once you have chosen the priorities, the next step is to turn them into clear actions, ownership, and follow-up. Our guide shows how to create an employee survey action plan.
The Best Follow-Up Is Not Positive or Negative. It Is Focused
Employee survey follow-up should not become a search for everything that is wrong. But it should not become an exercise in focusing only on the positive either.
Strong follow-up uses both sides of the results. It identifies issues that genuinely require attention, explores the strengths employees value, and uses dialogue to decide where the team should focus.
The question after an employee survey should therefore not simply be:
“Where did we score lowest?”
A better question is:
“What do these results tell us we should protect, understand, and improve?”
That creates a much stronger starting point for action.
