Employee survey Switzerland: costs and prices

Employee surveys are one of the most important tools for personnel and organizational development in many Swiss companies. They provide valuable insights into the working atmosphere, uncover blind spots in cooperation and create a sound basis for targeted improvements.

Employee surveys are becoming increasingly important, especially in times of skills shortages, rising expectations of younger generations and declining employee loyalty. They help to identify risks at an early stage, make potential visible and effectively strengthen trust and cooperation within the company.

However, anyone considering such a survey is quickly faced with practical questions:

• How expensive is an employee survey in Switzerland?
• Should you use an internal tool or be supported by a specialized provider?
• When is a full-service provider worthwhile? 

In this article, we provide an overview of the most important questions relating to costs, prices and implementation. We show what prices SMEs and larger companies should expect and what is important when choosing the right provider.

What does an employee survey cost in Switzerland?

The first question that many HR managers and executives ask themselves is: What does it all cost?

One thing is clear: the costs of an employee survey depend heavily on the scope, the method and the size of the company. The following factors, among others, are decisive:

• the number of employees and the complexity of the organization
• the questionnaire (standardized or customized, number of languages)
• the survey method (online survey, hybrid or on paper)
• and the selected provider

In practice, prices for smaller Swiss companies start at around CHF 3,500 to CHF 6,000. These are compact, standardized solutions for SMEs. For larger companies with several locations, for example in different countries, as well as multilingual questionnaires, customized content and in-depth evaluation, the costs can quickly rise into the five-digit range.

As a general rule, it is difficult to give all-inclusive prices. The price of an employee survey always depends on the anticipated effort involved. Depending on the objective, the depth of the survey and the requirements for consulting, evaluation and reporting, this effort can vary greatly.

“

At ValueQuest, we are committed to absolute price transparency for our clients. We create a cost ceiling for you that you can rely on. Without any hidden costs.

Contact me for a non-binding offer. 

What do the costs of an employee survey depend on?

The costs of an employee survey can vary greatly depending on the size of the company, the objectives being pursued and the complexity of the implementation. As a general rule, the larger and more demanding the project, the greater the effort and therefore the higher the costs.

#1: Number of employees
Many providers scale their prices according to the number of participants. This means that the more employees are surveyed, the higher the total price. At the same time, the price per person decreases, as fixed costs such as set-up, technical implementation and project management are spread over more people.

For example, a survey for 20 employees costs more per person than the same survey for 100 people because the fixed costs are spread more widely. With increasing size, however, the requirements for evaluation and coordination also increase. Although large companies pay more in total, they benefit from economies of scale. Smaller companies, on the other hand, can work well with standardized solutions.

#2: Questionnaire and consulting effort
The questionnaire is the heart of every survey. A central cost factor is the questionnaire design. The more rounds of voting are required, the higher the cost.

• Standardized questionnaires are based on tried and tested questionnaires. They can be expanded on a modular basis, enable benchmark comparisons with other companies in the same sector and are efficient as they are already preconfigured. This variant is particularly useful for SMEs that value proven structures and an attractive price.
• Individual questionnaires are tailored to the specific requirements and strategic goals of a company. They offer maximum fit, but require more time for design, coordination and technical implementation in the survey tool. These questionnaires are suitable, for example, for companies that are undergoing reorganization, are strongly driven by innovation, have special management models or values or have specific requirements in their industry.

#3: Length of the survey
Shorter employee surveys are not only easier for employees to complete, but also involve less effort for providers. However, the results are generally less meaningful due to the small number of responses. Especially when working with the results, there is often a lack of differentiation as to which aspects of a topic are viewed particularly critically.

More extensive surveys with additional modules, open free text fields or specific questions can significantly increase the workload. Employees need more time to complete the survey and qualitative comments must be carefully evaluated.

Added to this is the cost of consulting: if external experts are involved in the development and coordination of the questionnaire, this is also reflected in the price. However, a methodologically sound questionnaire is crucial in order to achieve usable and valid results.

#4: Survey method: online survey or paper survey
Online surveys are standard today. The invitations are sent by email or link, and the employees answer the questionnaire conveniently on their PC or smartphone, usually via a personalized access. The answers are automatically transmitted to the provider (e.g. ValueQuest) and evaluated directly. Reminder emails help to improve the response rate.

Online surveys are not only user-friendly, but also cost-efficient. If possible, this format should be preferred. Paper surveys should be used specifically where digital solutions are not realistic, for example for production employees without a PC. Paper surveys require significantly more effort: printing, mailing and return costs are incurred, and manual data entry is error-prone and time-consuming. Nevertheless, they are still relevant in certain sectors, such as production, retail, construction and logistics.

Find out more about our industry-specific offers on our industry page. 

#5: Multilingualism
Multilingualism is a key issue in Switzerland. A survey in German alone is not enough for many companies. If the survey is also offered in French, Italian or English, this increases acceptance and the participation rate.

However, additional language versions also incur additional costs: each version must be precisely formulated linguistically, tested and technically integrated into the survey tool. Multilingual versions are also often required for evaluation and reporting.

Our cost-effective standard solution already includes German, French, Italian and English. This standard solution is aimed in particular at SMEs.

For customized projects, additional languages can be added on request, for example Hungarian, Portuguese, Spanish or Chinese. ValueQuest not only handles the translation of the questionnaire, but also the linguistically correct layout of the reports.

#6: Complexity of the organization and depth of evaluation

Reporting must be geared towards the specific organizational structure, be it at company, location, department or team level. Only in this way can results be reflected back in a targeted manner and processed effectively.

The more complex a company, the greater the effort required for project setup, coordination and reporting. A simple example: if 50 employees have to be distributed across 5 teams, this can be implemented quickly. If, on the other hand, the organization consists of 500 employees in 50 teams, the planning and coordination effort increases significantly. In addition, there are often multilingual evaluations, different report recipients and additional data protection requirements.
In the case of groups with different business units and locations in several countries, the effort involved is particularly high. A lot of time must be invested in the run-up to the survey in order to generate a meaningful survey structure.

In addition to a consolidated overall report, providers of employee surveys create differentiated evaluations - for example:

• Site-specific reports
• Departmental or divisional reports
• Reports at team or management level

Our experience shows: It is the reports at team level that make the decisive difference. Because only when managers and their teams are aware of their own results can they react to them in a targeted manner. This makes the survey effective and turns it into a genuine instrument for change.

Decentralized companies with many locations, units or subsidiaries in particular often produce a large number of individual reports - sometimes several hundred. These must be:

• individually created
• carefully checked
• and processed in compliance with data protection regulations

A key point here is that groups below a defined minimum evaluation threshold - usually five participants - must not be evaluated separately. Otherwise, there is a risk that feedback from individual people can be attributed. This threshold must be jointly defined in the planning phase.

In the image below, you can see that the evaluation structure is based on the organization chart of the respective organization. This allows different teams and many hierarchy levels to be mapped. Employees can be meaningfully grouped into clusters, for example by department or function. The reporting structure allows internal benchmarking at several hierarchy levels. Team results can be compared directly within the same level, for example team A vs. team B.

Is there financial support for SMEs for employee surveys?

Yes, the Friendly Work Space label from Health Promotion Switzerland in particular offers SMEs financial support. As part of this program, small and medium-sized companies can carry out an external employee survey - professionally and effectively - thanks to partial funding from as little as CHF 3,000.

How much does an employee survey cost to implement?

Good providers point out at an early stage that follow-up measures (workshops, employee presentations, coaching) should be planned. These include, for example, team workshops, moderated feedback discussions or topic-specific project groups in order to jointly derive concrete improvement measures from the results.

We at ValueQuest will be happy to support you in the implementation according to your needs. Find out more!