The Link between Engagement Surveys and Effective Communication

Poor communication around your employee engagement survey leads to poor results. If you truly want to learn what your employees think and how you can improve your record at attracting, retaining and engaging your employees, be sure you are clear and compelling as you introduce your employee engagement survey initiative. 

Our employee engagement training programs consistently uncover how many companies unknowingly fail at the engagement survey process. Here are a few ways you might sabotage your own efforts at surveying your work force:

1. They won’t participate.It sounds so simple, but if you are not absolutely clear about how and when the survey is to be administered, you risk low participation. Employees could be confused as to deadlines for completion but, more importantly, they could be confused about why they should participate. 
   Be sure employees understand that the purpose of the survey is to learn what, from their point of view, needs to be both appreciated and improved. Be sure they understand also that, because you care about their commitment to the values and mission of the company, you intend to take meaningful and commensurate action when results are known. You will need to prove that you value each and every employee’s contribution and that this engagement initiative is a sincere attempt to hear what they have to say about the current work environment.
   


2. They won’t answer honestly. If you don’t assure anonymity, secure their trust or assure action as an outcome, there is little incentive for your workers to answer the survey thoroughly and honestly. Without honest feedback, you will have little guidance on what moves you can make that will truly make a difference.  According to our exit interview data, in addition to the questions not being validated or correlated to engagement, one of the greatest risks of homegrown employee engagement survey is getting unreliable and inaccurate feedback.
   


3. They will eventually leave.Without company-wide participation and honest feedback, there will be little positive change. If the status quo was toxic, as soon as employees are given a better option, your turnover rate will climb.

No matter how committed you are to improving employee engagement, the key is to communicate the employee engagement initiative in a way that generates full participation, sincere responses and clear guidelines on what you need to do to attract, retain and engage your top talent.  Plan your message carefully. Deliver it company-wide. See that it cascades throughout the organization. Be available to answer questions and concerns. And then make decisions for action as soon as the data has been gathered and analyzed.

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