Reach for the Panic Button if You Haven't Done an Employee Engagement Survey

It's Time To Figure Out What Needs Improving

It may not be time to panic but it is time to get a handle on what your disengaged employees are costing you and the only way to find out what that magic number is, is to ask them how they feel about their work experience. 

Why Does Employee Engagement Matter?

In our newly updated employee survey guide we talk about how employee engagement is a proven driver of quality, revenue, and customer service.

But the hardest part of improving employee engagement is simply figuring out what needs to be improved. This is a nationwide issue that affects all organizations, affecting some a great deal more than others, depending on their level of commitment to engaging their employees and to what extent they care about or buy into the benefits of employee engagement action planning.

In a recent webinar, Kim Scott, CEO Coach, formerly of Apple and Google, said employee opinion and feedback surveys are best described as “guidance surveys” because that’s what they provide to organizations, guidance. And guidance is what organizations need as they struggle to find out what is causing 20% of the US workforce to be ‘actively disengaged’ and costing the US economy approximately half a trillion dollars per year ^1.  

Measuring Employee Engagement: Measuring employee engagement is not the same as conducting an employee satisfaction survey. While it is valuable information to have, knowing whether your employees are satisfied with their work is not the same as measuring how engaged they are.

Measuring engagement takes into account several factors that include commitment, how committed your employees are to you and how committed they feel you are to them, if they believe in your mission vision and values, their needs are being met and they are they doing work that is well suited to their strengths and interests. There is no one single question that can provide this information so a guidance survey or employee survey must ask a series of questions that correlate to employee engagement and can provide a numerical index. That number is your thermometer measure and gives you a clear picture of employee engagement within your workforce.

Tip: pulse surveys do not ask enough questions to give you a complete engagement diagnostic and should only be used to supplement a full scale survey.

Actively measuring engagement helps organizations determine their unique drivers of engagement, and diagnose trouble areas that need immediate attention. In short, employee engagement surveys tell leaders exactly which levers they need to pull as they work to build better, stronger organizations.  And we find time and time again, employees sincerely want to be asked and they will tell you the truth about how they feel, so doing a survey is only a waste of time if you don’t respond to the results.

So no need to panic. To learn more about gaining insight into employee engagement, including what you are doing well and where you need to improve, contact us. Employee engagement is our passion and we can help.

1 Kowske, Brenda; Employee Engagement: Market Review, Buyer’s Guide and Provider Profiles; Bersin, August 2012, pg 12