PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR CREATING AND USING ORGANIZATIONAL SURVEY NORMS: LESSONS FROM TWO LONG-TERM PROJECTS Ashley M. Guidroz Denison Consulting Maya Yankelevich, Patricia Barger, Michael A. Gillespie, and Michael J. Zickar Bowling Green State University Surveys of organizational behavior and employee opinion are widely used in most companies, but organizations that use surveys with normative data- bases (given that they are well developed) can reap additional benefits from organizational survey efforts. There is very little literature that speaks to the process of creating survey norms or that provides guidance to people who may use them. The authors’ goal was to provide such a resource based on their experiences creating and maintaining survey norms. They propose a 3-phase model for creating survey norms, including data collection, calcu- lating norms, and publishing and maintaining norms and identifying factors within each of the 3 phases that can affect both the quality and interpretation of survey norms. Examples from previous normative projects are also included to illustrate the importance of these factors to both the quality and interpretation of survey norms. Keywords: survey norms, organizational surveys, percentiles, benchmarks Organization-wide survey efforts are common practice in most large organizations (Kraut, 1996; Macey & Eldridge, 2006), helping companies evaluate their culture, gauge em- Ashley M. Guidroz, Denison Consulting, Ann Arbor, MI; Maya Yankelevich, Patricia Barger, and Michael J. Zickar, Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University; Michael A. Gillespie, College of Education, Bowling Green State University. We thank Denison Consulting and the Job Descriptive Index administrative office at Bowling Green State University for giving us permission to use the DOCS and the JDI as examples in this article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ashley M. Guidroz, Denison Consulting, 121 West Washington, Suite 201, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. E-mail: aguidroz@ denisonculture.com Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research © 2009 American Psychological Association 2009, Vol. 61, No. 2, 85–102 1065-9293/09/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0015969 85