Maximizing Employee Inspiration/Engagement Surveys
Millions of words have been written about employee engagement and inspiration, and over a billion dollars is spent annually in the US alone on employee engagement surveys and improvement interventions. Yet the needle has essentially not budged in over 15 years.
In The Worldwide Employee Engagement Crisis by Gallup, the authors state,
Less than one-third of US employees have been engaged in their jobs and workplaces over the past 15 years.
Employee engagement has barely improved in years.
Most post survey solutions are ineffective.
The three main reasons why employers attempts at increasing employee engagement and inspiration fail is because of Execution Flaws, Paradigm Flaws, and Courage Flaws. In this newsletter we will review these reasons in great detail.
(Engagement and inspiration are used interchangeably in this post)
Improving employee inspiration is not just an HR Responsibility
Engagement as not just HR’s responsibility. Everybody plays a role in employee engagement and inspiration, from the CEO to individual contributors. Therefore, everyone must understand their role, take responsibility for it, and be held accountable.
Human resources needs to be seen as a facilitator of engagement, not the driver.
Trendy “Solutions” are not the answer (i.e. employee appreciation days and dress down Fridays)
This is very much “The American Way” when it comes to just about any issue related to employee morale, motivation, or engagement. The default response to problems in any of these areas is typically finding the latest engagement trend and applying it to their workforce.
To appreciate the folly of such an approach, consider the following analogy:
Imagine the following scenario: a co-worker tells you his wife just told him she’s unhappy with their relationship. He does not remember the exact reasons she stated for her unhappiness, but he does remember her saying she’s unhappy and thinking about leaving.
“I’ve come up with my game plan,” he tells you, bursting with determination and optimism. “But, I need your feedback on which option is the best. I’m trying to decide whether to buy her a BMW, take her on a cruise, or remodel the kitchen. Which do you think would make her happier?”
Now, if those are his potential solutions, might you have some clues about why his wife isn’t happy?
When HR and management respond to employee engagement survey results by establishing a “Fun Committee” or “Dress Down Fridays” or organizing an “Annual Employee “Appreciation event, they not only waste time, energy, and resources, but they can even make the problem worse.
Throwing goodies and gala event “solutions” at employee engagement problems communicates to employees:
“Management just doesn’t get it.”
“Management isn’t really serious or sincere about doing anything about this issue.”
To identify the real solutions to improving engagement — actions that will actually make a difference — requires recognizing the paradigm flaws that keep most organizations from addressing engagement effectively.
Engagement surveys, even with comments, is only the tip of the iceberg
When employee engagement surveys are seen as the be-all-and-end-all source of important information, employers miss out on a huge amount of valuable, actionable information that can only be elicited through in-depth, one-on-one interviews.
Interviews can enable you to:
Target A-list talent in hard-to-fill positions for intel on what’s most important to them, and whether they are getting it in your organization.
Gather useful information about managerial/employee moments of truth that are impacting employee engagement and productivity.
Identify bright spots — i.e. examples of managers and departments where employee engagement is high — and identify what practices are creating these positive conditions, and spread these throughout the organization.
Employee inspiration is viewed as a statistic rather than an individual experience
Each employee has their own employee engagement recipe, including their own unique combination of engagement drives, de-motivators, and preferred feedback style. The only way to create high engagement in each employee is to customize the engagement experience, which includes customizing one’s management approach.
As Marcus Buckingham puts it, “Average managers play checkers, while great managers play chess.” In other words, great managers don’t use a “one size fit’s all” approach to management; they tailor their approach based on each person’s unique personality and engagement recipe.
The conversation needs to be ongoing, because the employee experience is ongoing
Returning to the use of analogies in our personal lives, imagine having a once a year “Marriage Satisfaction Survey” where each partner fills out a survey form. They discuss their results, and then don’t have another meaningful conversation until the following year’s survey. How well would that strategy work?
It works just as well when it comes to employee engagement. Engagement is a dynamic, changing phenomenon that needs to be addressed as such. Some of the most important data can only be accessed soon after the experience. Many nuances that could be helpful to both manager and employee will be forgotten after a few weeks, let alone months.
Making ongoing manager/employee conversations the primary source of engagement information also addresses two of the biggest sources of employee engagement – especially among millennials: 1) Believing your manager cares about you as an individual and 2) Feeling your manager actively shows an interest in professional development.
Recommended Next Steps for better inspiration solutions
Discuss candidly where survey execution has areas of improvement.
Discuss possible faulty paradigms on which strategy has been built.
Discuss if, and how, leaders and managers are avoiding important conversations for engagement improvement.
Discuss candidly the cost of not having the desired level of employee inspiration:
•Great productivity and value generated per employee
•Better customer service
•Lower voluntary turnover
•Greater ability to attract A-list talent
Invest in getting in-depth interviews with both employees who hold hard-to-fill, competitive, and high-value generating positions.
Invest in helping your managers develop the conversational and “interviewing” skills necessary to make it safe for employees to engage in candid “Help ME Help You” (Help us) discussions.
These conversations provide the important feedback and information managers and organizations need to have a highly engaged, inspired and productive workforce.
Source:
Lee, D. (2017) Stop the employee engagement survey madness. Talent Management and HR. Retrieved from https://www.tlnt.com/stop-the-employee-engagement-survey-madness/
