Smart business leaders are always on the lookout for ways to reduce expenses, and we applaud their conscientious effort to save money. But “going cheap” on employee surveys, especially where employee engagement training is concerned is often not the best course of action.
There are three simple reasons why hiring outside third party experts is the way to go and, in the long run, save time, effort and dollars when measuring employee engagement:
- For real answers, employees need to believe in confidentiality.No matter how often and loudly senior managers say that survey responses will be confidential, employees are hard pressed to believe them. Someone in the company has to review and compile the data. How can employees be absolutely open and truthful in their responses if they suspect some potential retribution for their honesty?
You need to select an outside expert who guarantees anonymity. Even then there is often pressure from leaders to look at specific and narrow results. Some years ago we were in a meeting that got rather heated because the business leaders felt they had a right to see some individual results of the survey they had paid for. It was only the integrity of the external survey administrator who maintained the confidentiality of the assessment…and it was not easy.
- To interpret results and put them in context, leaders need benchmarks.It doesn’t do much good to learn from your internally-driven survey that employee engagement is at 67%. How does that measure up against similar companies in your industry? Only an external quality employee engagement research firm with access to data across industries, geographies and size can give you that helpful performance comparison. Then you will know how to interpret the numbers vis-à-vis your competition along with your unique business strategy, organizational culture and talent management strategy.
- Survey questions need to be valid and designed by experts. Poorly written surveys lead to poor or insufficient data. Even if you know enough not to ask leading or loaded questions, are you sure you might not include a double-barreled question like, “How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the work benefits and pay of your job?” Poorly worded questions can screw up the results. Rely upon experts who can ask questions in a way that provides actionable data and results. And even if you know how to create good questions, do you have the research to support that the questions actually measure and are correlated to employee engagement anchors like discretionary effort, advocacy and intent to stay? Bad questions lead to bad data. And bad data leads to bad decisions.
If determining employee engagement is important enough to you and your talent management strategy, spend the time and effort to do it right. If a survey is worth your employees’ time, it is worth your investment in hiring an external expert to help ensure meaningful results.
Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/leading-for-employee-engagement/
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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/
According to employee engagement research, less than one-third of the American work force is engaged. That means that over two-thirds are not very involved in or enthusiastic about their work and their work environment. Think of the impact this has on the country’s economy, not to mention your own organization.
There are many factors that go into why employees feel engaged in their work. Looking at the list in the picture above, we certainly agree that the nature of the work (what you do), the workload (how much you have to do), your autonomy (how independently you can operate) and your growth (how many opportunities you have to develop) all matter. But as a result of the twenty-plus years we have been working in the field of employee engagement training on behalf of employers and employees alike, we would choose the other four contributors to effective engagement as the factors that matter the most. And Gallup polls and our own best places to work employee engagement research support our choices.
Relationships
Employees feel connected in a positive way to their work when they have meaningful relationships with their coworkers and, especially, with their manager. 50% of employees who leave do so because of a poor relationship with their manager. It is crucial that managers know how to lead and how to communicate effectively with their team…regularly and often. They need to get to know the individuals on their team—both personally and professionally—and to show they care about their development and well-being.
Clarity
Workers need to know clearly what they are being asked to do and how they directly contribute to the team and the company as a whole. And beyond fulfilling the tasks of the job, they need to know how their performance will be monitored and measured. What does high performance look like and how would you know if you were performing below standard?
Fairness
Accountability for performance is crucial and should be handled in a consistent, transparent and fair manner. It should be no secret when a team member is not doing their job as expected and the consequences of poor performance should be applied evenly. The under-performing employee may need more training or coaching; or their below average performance may be temporary and satisfactorily explained. If not, an improvement plan should be co-created and regular measures put in place to track progress.
Recognition
When the right behaviors are observed and an employee has exerted effort above and beyond what is required, they need to be rewarded and recognized. And recognition should come in a way that will be valued by the individual…announcement at a team meeting, notice in the company newsletter, an afternoon off, or tickets to a sports event. Be creative in the way you recognize a successful employee but make sure you do it in a way that is commensurate with the achievement.
Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/leading-for-employee-engagement/
Although savvy business leaders recognize the value of an employee engagement survey, front-line managers and employees may need to be convinced.
And unless a large enough majority participates willingly and honestly in the process, assessment results will be incomplete and invalid. As company leaders, we need to be able to persuade our employees that the employee engagement assessment process will benefit them, their team and the organization as a whole.
Think about when you were asked to stay on the phone to complete a customer satisfaction survey… perhaps for your bank or to rate an online shopping experience. Most of us have multiple reasons to decline.
- We don’t have the time.
- We don’t believe there’s anything in it for us.
- We don’t trust that it will make much difference (unless we were either over-the-top delighted or super dissatisfied).
- We just don’t care enough.
Many of these reasons are the same reasons we hear in our employee engagement training workshops that keep employees from participation in employee engagement surveys.
Here is what we must do to encourage and support their critical involvement in the process.
- Make the engagement survey simple and easy.Every employee should have easy access to the survey, whether online or on paper, it should be in their preferred language, and it should take no more than 10-12 minutes to complete.
- Ensure survey anonymity.Employees need to trust that their comments will have no negative consequences or repercussions. Leaders must be able to assure that the individual responses will be confidential. If there are issues of trust in your organization, hire a third party to administer the survey.
- Be clear on the purpose.Make sure employees understand that this is not a survey whose goal is idle and self-serving curiosity. Your work force needs to believe that you are measuring the degree of employee advocacy, discretionary effort and intent to stay because you want to improve the overall performance environment for the good of the company. You want their honest feedback in order to make the important changes that matter most to them in terms of their commitment to their job and the organization.
- Outline the engagement implementation plan.In your introductory communications, explain that the engagement results will be analyzed and reported back, first in rather general terms and then in more specific actionable terms as they cascade throughout the organization. Tell employees that they will have opportunities to weigh in on the plans for improving engagement and will be involved with their teams in the implementation of what matters most.
- Follow through on your engagement plans.Be straightforward in reporting the employee engagement results so you have a mix of the positive and negative. Link the feedback to the specific changes you intend to make. Involve employees through focus groups and general meetings where questions and suggestions are encouraged so they feel as if they share ownership of the change process and are still a critical part of the process.
At our high growth clients, the bulk of the work gets accomplished via cross-functional, remote and onsite teams. Star performance is achieved when a team is working cooperatively, when each member has a clear idea of how they contribute, when each does their part and when each is committed to the common goal. It’s an intricate high performance dance that requires strong, capable leadership, a balance of rewards and consequences, and happily engaged team members with the right mix of skills, behaviors and attitudes.
The whole structure can fall apart, however, when a team member or two becomes less engaged or disengaged. If they are actively disengaged for example, they may even become hostile and a threat that goes way beyond their own poor performance. They can poison a whole team and have a negative effect on productivity, on customers and undermine leadership.
Our latest annual study of employee engagement showed that over 10% of the workforce was disengaged and over 3% of those were actually hostile. Because we typically work with companies who are among the “Best Places to Work,” we interpret these statistics as being less than what exists across the more general workforce. Here are two graphs that show the results in two large metro areas with a breakdown into four employee groups as follows:
Knowing that even one hostile employee can infect those around them and spread harmful germs, what can you do to fix the problem? The first step is to find out where disengaged employees are hiding and address their concerns.
After surveying 500,000 North American workers, hostile employees rated five engagement survey items as the ones that caused them the most dissatisfaction. We list them here with the antidote…
1. Disengagement Driver: Lack of open and honest communication between employees and managers
Recommended Engagement Action: Make sure all employees are encouraged and feel safe in asking questions and challenging practices and ideas.
2. Disengagement Driver: Lack of professional growth and career development opportunities
Recommended Engagement Action: Find out what motivates each individual member of your team and co-create a plan for the future that includes a piece of what they care about doing.
3. Disengagement Driver: Lack of recognition
Recommended Engagement Action: Appreciate your team members’ value and contributions openly and often.
4. Disengagement Driver: Lack of leadership’s appreciation of people as their most important resource
Recommended Engagement Action: Give employees praise when earned, some flexibility, and opportunities to grow.
5. Disengagement Driver: Lack of understanding of how they fit into the organization’s future plans
Recommended Engagement Action: Keep your employees well informed of the company overall strategy and how their work contributes to the plan.
Your goal should be to eliminate hostile employees and greatly reduce the number of disengaged workers. The more engaged your workplace, the closer you, too, will be to a great place to work. And highly engaged workforces equate to:
• 8% greater productivity
• 12% higher customer satisfaction
• 51% less voluntary turnover
Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/leading-for-employee-engagement/
Sometimes the most obvious participants in an employee engagement initiative are left out of the picture. So that you are not left with a serious hole in your employee engagement initiative, include employees from the very start of your survey planning and launch.
Employee commitment to your employee engagement survey is not just about the number of employees who participate. Filling out a questionnaire is only a task. If you want your engagement plans to succeed, you must gain the hearts and minds of your employees…not just their ratings to engagement questions. And to earn their full-fledged commitment to the process, you need to begin at the beginning. Based upon over 5,000 employee engagement training sessions per year:
1. Make sure that the employee engagement survey is easy to take and relevant to your unique business need-to-know. In general, no survey should take more than 15-20 minutes. It should be readily accessed by all employees whether online or in paper form. And, if your employees speak multiple languages, be sure the survey is available in the languages represented.
2. The announcement of the survey and an invitation to participate should come from the highest level. You want everyone to understand that this assessment is an important part of the leadership’s plan for the company’s future well-being. This is the time to explain the purpose of the survey, to emphasize that all responses will be kept confidential, to commit to reporting back on the results and to promise that there will be appropriate actions taken when the results are known.
3. Maintain a flow of updates on the survey process. Managers should continue to encourage participation, the percentages of those surveys returned should be reported regularly, and a push toward 100% participation should escalate as the deadline for completing the forms nears.
4. As soon as the leadership team has reviewed the results and determined what critical few actions should be taken, they should communicate at a high level with the employee population at large and in more detail with the organization’s various department heads. This is not a time to cover up the negatives that were revealed. After all, the point of the survey was to figure out what was not working and what could be improved for better employee advocacy, discretionary effort and retention. Celebrate what is going well and identify meaningful and implementable steps to improve the most important drivers of engagement. Summarize both the company-wide positives and the negatives. Specific actions should then be discussed and committed to at the department level with executive approval.
5. Include employees in the departmental meetings where actions will be considered and specific action steps outlined. The more employees are involved at this point, the more they will feel ownership of the improvement process. Remember, half the battle is having employees feel that you value them as your most important asset.
In your zeal to begin the process of improving employee engagement, do not neglect to get your employees in on the process…from beginning to end with an explicit commitment from the executive team to decisively and visibly act upon the employee engagement survey results. Done right, you should have employees who:
• Are committed and emotionally connected
• Go out of their way to over-achieve
• Actively promote your business
• Stay with you during good times and bad
Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/leading-for-employee-engagement/
It is a big mistake to think that your employees are motivated only by more money. For those of us who have spent many years in the field of employee engagement training, we know that, as long as their salaries are fair, employees are not driven solely by cash rewards.
This is good news to companies who need all their capital to invest in the future or weather a storm. It is heartening to know that there are ways to continue to effectively engage employees meaningfully even when there is no money to spare.
So how can you continue to keep the hearts and minds of employees when times are tough? Here are some suggestions:
1. Recognition
Employees appreciate being recognized when they have put in extra effort. They don’t always need a cash bonus, but they do need praise, some time off or a nice gesture. And, if the praise occurs in a public setting, it is all the more valuable. Whether it is at regular weekly meetings, through the company newsletter, or a salute at an all hands meeting, employees shine when their contributions are singled out as extraordinary.
2. One-on-ones with company leaders
When an employee has come forward with an idea that improved productivity, overcame an obstacle or propelled the team toward their goal, why not give them a chance to talk about their coup with those who care most about business results—company leaders? The opportunity to meet with a top executive is coveted by all employees. This is a great motivator to reach further and higher.
3. New challenges
High performing employees typically love to be trusted with stretch goals or responsibilities. This is what keeps them learning and growing, and that is what they often value most. If you want to keep these “A players” aboard, find them new opportunities to lead projects or to share their special expertise with another department. Your top talent has the desire to learn and they value the exposure.
You will know you are on the right path when employees consistently believe that:
• The organization makes investments to make them more successful.
• The leaders of the organization value people as their most important resource.
• Considering the value they bring to the organization, they feel they are paid fairly.
• The leaders of the organization are committed to making it a great place to work.
• There are professional growth and career development opportunities in your organization.
Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/leading-for-employee-engagement/
