Employee Engagement Goes Way Beyond Surveys

Yes, go ahead and conduct your surveys to determine the current level of employee engagement. But do not administer them just to satisfy your curiosity or appease your employees or the Board. Be prepared to put in the time and effort required to actually take the steps necessary to improve the engagement drivers that matter most for your unique situation. 

Employee engagement training professionals agree that you need engagement data to get feedback and create a baseline. It creates a benchmark against which you measure the effectiveness of your improvement efforts. Once the surveys are completed, however, the real work begins.  And sadly, many organizations fail to effectively follow through with these three key actions.

1. Analyze the engagement data to uncover the specific engagement drivers and best practices at your company. What actionable areas make the most difference between the highly engaged and the lowly engaged? You’re likely to find the differences involve such factors as recognition, feeling valued as a resource, organizational or job fit, future outlook of the company, and trust in senior leaders.
   
2. Share what you have learned and what you plan to do about it.Broadcast a consistent message that shows that you listened and have an improvement plan.  It is important that you make a clear link between engagement, retention, performance and business success based upon your unique business strategy and corporate culture.
   
3. Identify key engagement actions.Once you agree upon the key behaviors and practices that promote engagement, it is time to do something about it, monitor progress and adjust as you go.  The more you involve people in the discussion and solution design, the better chance you have of the changes succeeding.

While high engagement is a leading indicator of overall business success, any engagement program will fail unless it is sponsored by the executive team, aligned with the overall business and talent strategies, and viewed on equal footing with other key strategic initiatives.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/leading-for-employee-engagement/