Switching to a new provider for your employee surveys can feel like a big step. Many organisations hesitate, often because they’re unsure how to bring their historical data with them.
And that’s a very valid concern. In practice, it’s often difficult to transfer historical team-level results from a previous provider, usually due to differences in question scales, calculation methods or how the questions are phrased.
But that doesn’t mean you have to start from scratch. It’s really about finding the right balance between continuity and renewal. Here are five tips to make switching your employee survey platform easier.
1. Focus on continuity, not on complete data migration
Don’t try to recreate your entire historical database. That often becomes complicated and unreliable. Instead, focus on the key questions and areas you want to track over time, such as:
• Engagement
• Leadership
• Collaboration
• Workload
• Clarity of goals
By identifying these areas and carrying them into your new platform, you’ll have a solid foundation to follow progress going forward, even if the data can’t be mirrored exactly from the past.
2. Use established question formulations and response scales, but adapt when needed
To compare results over time, it’s essential to use the same question wording and response scale. Even small changes, such as moving from a five-point to a ten-point scale or changing a single word, can make results hard to interpret.
Many organisations want to “bring their old questions” when switching providers, but that often leads to extra work and poorer comparability. At Brilliant, we instead encourage customers to use our validated questions and response scales, which are based on extensive data and research. This makes it possible to:
• Maintain comparability over time
• Access our benchmark data
• Ensure the measurement remains high-quality going forward
At the same time, we understand that every organisation is unique. That’s why it’s always possible to adjust or add questions to reflect your specific needs, without losing the shared foundation that makes the results comparable.
3. Treat the switch as a fresh start for your insight work
Changing providers is an opportunity to rethink how you measure, follow up, and act on results.
It’s a great time to:
• Ensure that your measurement reflects your goals and culture
• Simplify the question set and reduce response time
• Give managers better support in working with the results
By combining continuity in key areas with innovation in method and design, you’ll gain a more modern survey approach that strengthens engagement and generates better insights.
4. Create a clear transition plan
For a smooth transition, it’s a good idea to have a plan that includes:
• Which questions and areas will remain unchanged
• Which will be replaced with Brilliant’s standard questions
• Which may need to be adjusted to fit your needs
• How you’ll communicate the change internally, so that both managers and employees understand what’s new and why
A clear plan creates confidence and makes it easier to interpret the results during the first period on the new platform.
5. Focus on development, not just comparison
Keeping key questions isn’t only about comparing results over time – it’s about showing real progress. When you can follow up on stable, validated questions over time, the results become more meaningful and easier to act upon.
The transition is also an excellent opportunity to review how your organisational structure is imported into the platform. By reassessing your import process, you can ensure it aligns with your existing data sources and minimises manual work. This is the perfect time to establish a smoother, more automated approach that supports accurate reporting and saves valuable time in the long run.
How we do it at Brilliant
We know that switching platforms can feel extensive, but our goal is to make it as smooth as possible. That’s why we:
• Provide clear guidance to help our customers identify which questions should be kept, adapted or replaced
• Offer established question libraries and response scales based on research, giving access to relevant benchmark data
• Offer flexibility to adapt questions so that the measurement remains relevant without losing comparability
• Automate the transition so our customers can get started quickly without rebuilding their entire survey from scratch
Switching to Brilliant doesn’t mean starting over. It means continuing to develop — with better support, more reliable data, and a platform that makes it easy to act on insights.