What do Employee Engagement Surveys Measure
So you’ve finally admitted that you’ve had enough - enough of reading facial expressions, enough of listening carefully for double meaning, enough of second guessing, all in an attempt to figure out the level of Employee Engagement at your company. You decide to conduct an Employee Engagement Survey.
Whether you are designing the survey internally or using the services of a provider, you need to ensure that survey questions refer to the emotional and intellectual connection that the employee has with the organization as well as the employee’s contribution to the business outcomes.
Be clear on what you want to measure.
Do you want to measure Employee Engagement or Employee Satisfaction?
With Employee Satisfaction questions such as “Are you happy?” or “Do you have a best friend at work?” becomes important.
With either survey questions there are two main questions to be answered - . These questions are further broken down to questions that deal with what and how of the engagement.
Question 1: What do employees need to be emotionally connected to what they are doing? This is broken down to questions that deal with the following needs. Employees need to:
- Work in physical spaces that are conducive to their work
- Have the right tools to effectively work
- Be seen and heard
- Feel that their contributions are valued and valuable
- Feel a sense of pride in the work that they do
- Feel a sense of pride in the company that they work for
- Have a sense of belonging
- Have fit with the organization
Question 2: What does your employee need to be intellectually connected to the work that they do? This is broken down to questions that deal with the following needs. Employees need to:
- Understand the company’s strategy/ mission/ vision/ core values
- Understand how the work they do is aligned to the strategy/ mission/ vision/ core values
- Be effectively led
- See leaders walking the talk
- Have the skills for the job they are doing
- Work with effective processes
- Be clear about their career paths
- Have a vision of their future within the organization
The survey questions can be grouped under different headings such as : Physical space, Strategy, Work Process, Technology, Leadership, Communication, Executive Management and any other headings that are important to your organization.
While some companies take the survey as an opportunity to ask about the kitchen sink I would caution against this approach.
If there is a core competency or strength that your company sees as important to its business outcome, then by all means include questions about that.
Be aware that what you measure is what you will get responses on.
What do you want to measure in your engagement survey?
And the survey says….
The Human Resources Manager hosted a Town Hall to share the results of the recently concluded Employee Engagement Survey.
He entered the room with great flair and seemed just as excited as we, since it was the first time that such a survey was conducted. My excitement waned after his opening remarks, “I’ve heard complaints about the company, but the survey says…”
As he shared the scores, he told the audience that the survey results placed the complainers in the minority, and whatever problems were perceived these were not supported by the survey results. As I squirmed in my chair, I noticed that my colleagues seemed equally uncomfortable with the performance.
After the meeting, I huddled with colleagues and we were left with two questions:
- How were the results tabulated?
- What was the message received from the results
How were the results tabulated?
One of the questions was: Do you understand the impact of the strategy on your job?
The results were as follows
- 40% of staff completely understood the strategy
- 10% of staff did not understand the strategy
- 50% of staff were neutral in the response
The results can be interpreted as
- 90% of staff understand the impact of the strategy on the job. or
- 40% of the staff understand the impact of strategy, 60% do not.
Which of the interpretations accurately reflect the situation?
The HR manager chose to interpret the figures as 90% of staff understood the impact of strategy.
The reactions of the staff suggested that he may have erred in using neutral scores to buffer and tabulate higher engagement scores.
Neutral scores may reflect ambivalence or lack of interest about the strategy, or a feeling that the strategy is separate from the job or have some other meaning.
If the HR manager was interested in getting to the truth of the matter instead of patting himself on the back, he could have gotten real data for the company to learn more about the employees’ level of engagement.
What do the results say?
Survey results communicate the level of Employee Engagement to the company’s leadership. Though the numbers provide data, there is need for a shared understanding of what the scores reflect.
I advise clients that the engagement survey results signal the start of the work.
After tabulating the results, I assist clients to host meetings with staff - by departments/ teams -, to understand what the results mean.
At these meetings I spend 95% of the time listening to staff explain the reasons behind the scores and clarifying what I have heard.
I have heard the reasons for high scores as I understand the strategy, I did not want to rock the boat, I don't believe the survey is anonymous/or I fear retribution, I did not want to seem stupid.
Mid level and low scores may also reflect - that the strategy is not understood, a different interpretation of the questions, the impact of a recent event, misunderstandings of past situations or a lack of interest in the question.
While these meetings do not change the scores, they give good insight into
- the meaning of the scores,
- what needs to be addressed to change the score,
- pointers to address with staff before the next engagement survey
- the questions that may need to be reworded for the next survey.
Companies with a longer tradition of performing engagement surveys have less interpretation problems with the survey questions, there is still the need to understand what is behind the scores.
While the score itself is important, it becomes even more important when everyone clearly understands what the score means and why the questions were scored in a particular way.
As I reflect on the Town Hall, I am still left with the image of the gleeful HR Manager juxtaposed with the staff shuffling out of the meeting room. The results were seen as a validation of Employee Engagement efforts even though no attempts were made to understand what the results meant. The high scores that clearly included neutral scores were sadly enough for him. What a wasted opportunity!
What does your company do after the survey results have been tabulated?
After the Employee Engagement Survey, she called and said,” Every year, we do an Employee Engagement Survey and every year our score is more or less the same.’
I asked, “What do you do with the survey results?”
She responded,” What do you mean?”
I tried again, “What actions does the company take between engagement Surveys to change the scores?”
She was equally bewildered; and I knew the answer to both questions - Nothing.
The Employee Engagement Survey Result is not an end of itself. It is an indicator of the level of engagement that the employees have with the organization.
The survey is a feedback tool, that says, “These are the areas in which the company is connecting/ not connecting with employees or these are areas that the employees feel engaged or disengaged with the company.”
The survey provides feedback on the level of emotional or intellectual connection that employees have with the different areas of the work environment - strategy, leadership communication, the work that they do and their career path, inter alia.
Like any good listener, when the company receives this feedback, the company needs to
- Clarify for understanding
- Listen to what is being said
- Make a decision
- Give a response
For example, the Engagement Survey results indicate that communication is ineffective. The company’s leadership needs to
- Clarify for understanding - Meet with employees to understand what’s behind the scores and give employees the opportunity to give examples or express feelings further.
- Listen to what is being said – Leaders need to actively listen. This is not the time for explanations, justifications or defensive statements
- Make a decision – The leadership can either do nothing or based on the feedback make a change
- Give a response - The leadership announces that effective January 1 quarterly staff meetings will be held with a stated agenda.
In this example, the leadership has created more opportunities for communication.
If the score is unchanged in a subsequent survey, the leadership now has new information to process, that is, more meetings does not equal better communication. The unchanged result, after discussions with staff, may reveal that the meeting agenda is inadequate, or quarterly staff meetings in the company’s environment may be insufficient or a misinterpretation of employee feedback.
There is no silver bullet, the leadership has to follow the leads presented in the feedback and put actions in place, bearing in mind that there may be many facets to a problem all competing for recognition at the same time.
The leader’s duty is to collaborate with employees for possible solutions to change the low scores and to involve employees in the implementation of the same. The leaders alone cannot change the scores.
While the focus is on the score - everyone wants a higher score - we need to acknowledge that this doesn’t happen automatically. Things need to be done differently for Employee Engagement scores to increase.
There must be a targeted effort to address the low scoring areas (improvement opportunities) and staff need to be actively involved for this to happen.
The leaders’ at my client’s company obviously view the Engagement Score as the end result, without understanding that it is just a beginning.
What does your company do between Employee Engagement Surveys?
