If You Ask What's Wrong Be Prepared To Act or Don't Bother Asking

Or You Could End Up Worse Off Than Before

The worst thing you can do is survey your employees and then do nothing.

It is cruel to ask for people’s opinions and then ignore them. You raise expectations and then let everyone down, which can be interpreted as being demeaning and disrespectful. Hardly the way to get behind a commitment to employee engagement and a sure-fire way to alienate your team.

Step back and let’s remind ourselves that the primary reason companies conduct employee survey or feedback surveys in the first place is to achieve better performance. That’s because when employees and managers get together to discuss survey results, their conversations lead to action plans. And successful action plans have a direct and positive impact on engagement, retention, productivity and profits, and they help reduce turnover and costs as well.

So the upshot is that employee engagement surveys can be extremely useful, unless of course nothing happens. One of the most serious mistakes a company can make is to ask their employees their opinion and then do nothing in response. Not only does taking no action undermine engagement, employees begin to doubt their managers’ sincerity because they asked for their opinions and then aren’t willing to do anything with them.

Employees expect and need resolution and the best way to accomplish this is through action planning. Deciding what action to take and the methods used may vary, but there has to be a process for each manager to discuss the results with their team. Working together on issues and resolving them is a valuable process and this collaboration and working together as a team is often seen, in our research, as being one of the key drivers of engagement.

Action planning boosts employee engagement because the survey itself demonstrates that the feelings and opinions of all your employees count.
Imagine your manager asking you to stay late to work on action planning initiatives. Sounds like a punishment doesn’t it? A classic example of action planning used in the worst possible way - to de-motivate and demean co-workers. You might as well show them the door.

Rule of thumb:

1. Regardless of how you execute your action planning, it is essential that employees and managers know what needs to be accomplished, so they have a clear idea of the purpose. Defining the steps involved in action planning will establish what is expected of them, so that you can achieve the desired outcomes.
2. The action plan has to work well for the managers and employees who have to implement it - there is no one-size-fits-all action plan. Everyone has their own talents and strengths, which means that action planning goals will be as unique as the people who develop them.
3. The key is that the process needs to be positive and should involve everyone on the team. Action planning has a direct and measurable impact on employee engagement.

 If you are ready, let’s get your employee survey started and get the feedback you need. To learn more contact us at www.insightlink.com.