How to Design, Implement, and Interpret an Employee Survey

Sampling Error

You may have noticed that published surveys often include a statement similar to:

Sampling error + - 3 or some other number. The sampling error indicates the deviation of results from the total population.

For example, assume you conducted an employee opinion survey with a group of 600 employees randomly selected from a population of 2,000 employees, and 60 percent of the employees surveyed indicated they were satisfied with the current benefit program. However, that 60 percent may not be exactly how all employees in the population might have responded. The sampling error calculation is a statistical calculation that estimates the deviation.

As with the earlier considerations of degree of confidence and maximum allowable error, ...