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employee engagement
Benefits & Compensation
employee engagement
Exchange ideas about health plans, retirement, work/life benefits, and employee assistance.
I have several questions relating to employee engagement:
What method do you use to measure engagement?
How often do you measure?
How do you distribute the results?
What actions take place followi
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Forums » Topic Forums » Benefits & Compensation » employee engagement
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employee engagement
posted at 7/26/2005 5:08 AM EDT
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Posts: 2
First: 7/26/2005 Last: 9/29/2005 |
Management conducts employee surveys at our facility every other year. We are 140 strong, and part of a 35,000+ workforce. The documents are produced and evaluated by Franklin-Covey.
This past year I was part of a very pro-active division. We went through the results of the survey in a meeting, and then gathered our thoughts in order to suggest solutions to the problems addressed. Additional issues were brought up that were not covered in the survey questions. The suggested solutions were meant to address (perceived) failures in four departments. Two of the departments, IT and Facilities Management, were left to work out their own issues. The HR area formed two volunteer committees in order to work out the other issues. I volunteered to co-chair (help facilitate and take meeting minutes) on the committees, and we continue to address HR Improvement and Health Insurance Improvement issues on a monthly basis. We are about to report back to the facility at large in order to give them some feedback on what's been done with the survey results. (We have reached the 6-month mark in our progress.) In years prior to this, I know of no changes resulting from the surveys. Now I think people will take them more seriously. We're actually getting things accomplished, and communicating more directly with management. |
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employee engagement
posted at 7/26/2005 11:12 AM EDT
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Posts: 2
First: 7/26/2005 Last: 7/26/2005 |
Strategic Programs, Inc. in Denver, CO, specializes in Organizational and
Employee Surveys, including Employee Engagement and Exit Interviews (the "exited organization"). After working in numerous industries for 17 years, we know that the engagement process can be initiated with the design of the instrument and the process by which it will be implemented. Accessing honest, quality feedback and high capture rates requires high-touch implementation, assurance of absolute confidentiality, training the respondents, and other critical success factors. The process is as important as the instrument. First, you need a company-specific survey, that measures your company's cultural dimensions. Generic surveys cost valuable employee time trying to decide how the questions apply to their work-life experience. You also need to respond to the results of the survey. Nothing is worse than someone honestly communicating that there is a problem and then see nothing happening to resolve the situation. The results are an opportunity for management to engage employees - their most valuable resource - in positive organizational change Conducting a survey without planning how to address the results can cause employees to disengage more so than not conducting the survey. Strategic Programs customizes instruments to help HR measure the pulse of the organization and partners with HR to devise "Action" plans. As to "how often?" Your organization is a living organism. As you implement change, it is a good idea to measure it along the way - and communicate the results for both employee and management accountability. Feel free to contact me for additional information. |
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employee engagement
posted at 7/26/2005 11:15 AM EDT
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Posts: 2
First: 7/26/2005 Last: 7/26/2005 |
[quote]
On 2005-07-26 15:12, rvenckus wrote: Strategic Programs, Inc. in Denver, CO, specializes in Organizational and Employee Surveys, including Employee Engagement and Exit Interviews(the"exited organization"). After working in numerous industries for 17 years,we know that the engagement process can be initiated with the design of the instrument and the process by which it will be implemented. Accessing honest,quality feedback and high capture rates requires high-touch implementation, assurance of absolute confidentiality, training the respondents, and other critical success factors. The process is as important as the instrument. First, you need a company-specific survey, that measures your company's cultural dimensions. Generic surveys cost valuable employee time trying to decide how the questions apply to their work-life experience. You also need to respond to the results of the survey. Nothing is worse than someone honestly communicating that there is a problem and then see nothing happening to resolve the situation. The results are an opportunity for management to engage employees - their most valuable resource - in positive organizational change Conducting a survey without planning how to address the results can cause employees to disengage more so than not conducting the survey. Strategic Programs customizes instruments to help HR measure the pulse of the organization and partners with HR to devise "Action" plans. As to "how often?" Your organization is a living organism. As you implement change, it is a good idea to measure it along the way - and communicate the results for both employee and management accountability. Feel free to contact me for additional information. [/quote] |
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employee engagement
posted at 7/26/2005 1:40 PM EDT
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Posts: 1
First: 7/26/2005 Last: 7/26/2005 |
Your question is very topical at the moment with "employee engagement" being the catch phrase of many consultants right now.
I'm part of a research centre at Maquarie University in Australia called "The Voice Project", we are experts in this area and were recently recognised for our cutting edge work at an international conference for Psychologists. We have found that "employee engagement" is really just consultant jargon for whether employees are satisfied in their job, intend to stay in the organisation and feel committed or involved in the organisation. We've also found that it takes an assessment of all HR and Management practices to determine what engages staff and how to impact on that engagement level, hence it's doubtful that a survey instrument of just 12 items could do the trick (as mentioned above). In addition, there are clear indicators that a rise in engagement of 5% (as measured by our instrument) results in quantifiable decreases in staff turnover, absenteeism and a strong increase in profit margin. So the idea of engagement itself is still very useful for strategic HR decision making. However, the biggest issue around employee engagement is not really how it's measured - the science and research groups like us have tackled that for you - it's what you do with the results after you get them back. This is another reason why a 12 question instrument would be doubtful in effectiveness. The survey needs to provide you with sufficient information to do something about it. And to do something about it at the level of a manager or supervisor. The organisations that work with us find that a clear diagnosis designed to be immediately useful to managers (without all the statistical terms) and which describes observable aspects of the organisation (behaviours and processes)is most effective in getting action after the survey - so we focus on delivering this solution to their needs while still delivering powerful analyses. That's the real key to this process. You need to get useful results that can then be used. I'd advise you to really think about the post survey part before you pick the instrument you want to measure with. |
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employee engagement
posted at 7/26/2005 1:56 PM EDT
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Posts: 42
First: 12/4/2002 Last: 6/8/2008 |
I prefer to measure the executives and managers since if they are taking the correct actions, the workforce will unleash their full potential of creativity, innovation, productivity, motivation and commitment. Execs and managers who don't take the right actions will experience one third to one quarter of the productivity and innovation employees can produce.
The questions I prefer would be does the leader - provide regular and frequent opportunities to make complaints, suggestions and questions? elicit answers/responses from the team and get them to use their brainpower to problem solve? listen to employees with 100% attention without distraction, without trying to figure out a response and with use of follow-up questions to obtain missing details and suggested fixes? refrain from giving orders since by their nature orders are demeaning and disrespectful and destroy innovation and commitment? treat members better in terms of humility, respect, timely and high quality responses, forthrightness, trust, admission of error, etc than they are expected to treat customers and each other? publicly recognize people for their contributions and high performance and never take credit him/herself? openly provide all company info to members to the extent they need/desire? use values and high standards of them in order to explain why certain actions are better than others? use smiles and good humor with subordinates, not frowns? There are more, but the above constitute a representative sample. Best regards, Ben Simonton Author "Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed" http://www.bensimonton.com |
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employee engagement
posted at 7/27/2005 3:18 AM EDT
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Posts: 2
First: 7/27/2005 Last: 7/28/2005 |
We measured employee equity, which is a step beyond employee engagement. In actuality, there are two concepts that make up employee equity: job commitment and engagement or level of connection to the organization. It really makes sense, a person can like their job and not like the company they work for or vica versa. You have to measure both to get a true sense of the level of equity in your organization; as we all know by now, engagement or equity or whatever you call it does have a positive impact of internal and external business metrics, such as retention, productivity, number of used sick leave, customer loyalty, quality, profitability, etc.
I have worked with many companies over the years on their employee surveys it appears that every other year is the most frequent administration period. I've noticed a trend in the last year or so where companies are doing shorter "pulse" surveys more frequently. Some others are alternating full surveys one year with pulse surveys in between cycles. The distribution of results is typically dependant on company goals, but commonly they are rolled out by level first (i.e., CEO and senior management team and down in intervals). Also, to ensure the greatest amount of accountablility, every manager who has 5 or more employees gets a survey report with tactical information to act on. In addition, an employee equity barometer is provided across the organization for a quick read on the equity levels of employees. It is important to do the right analytics on employee survey data so that you know where to allocate your resources and spend your time and energy in action planning. We do a key driver analysis for major business units to see what levers in the organization to push in order to increase employee equity. This is an important new analysis that the survey industry is using: in the past organizations would focus on the lowest scores. Now, organizations can focus on those scores that covary with equity - i.e., those things to change to improve equity levels in employees. The actions that organizations take to increase engagaement or equity varies across organizations; each organization is unique, with unique strategies, strengths and opportunities. There are some best practices, however, that all organizations should follow when conducting an employee survey. If anyone is interested in chatting further about this, please feel free to call me at 630-960-3248 or e-mail at s.pappas@marketprobe.com |
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employee engagement
posted at 7/28/2005 5:14 AM EDT
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Posts: 1
First: 7/28/2005 Last: 7/28/2005 |
In many employee engagement projects, measurement often seems to be the goal. As the original question implies, measurement is just the starting point and the next steps if any are often not very productive. In our employee performance work with clients, we usually begin with an on-line survey normally our own survey although there are other excellent ones out there. The key is what to do next, and we typically then work with the leadership team to examine the implications of the survey results in order to provide actionable feedback to the survey participants.
Employee dis-engagement is pervasive in most organizations today, and increasingly middle management people stand out in this. However, the root causes are often to be found with personal goals of senior management, who set the tone and culture for the entire organization. So, we look at the leadership teams own personal vision, roles and goals and their alignment with those of the organization and vice versa. By working top down initially, we aim to tackle some of the most critical performance issues first many of them caused by the top-down nature of organizational goal setting in the first place. b.angel@tps-international.com |
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employee engagement
posted at 7/28/2005 5:41 AM EDT
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Posts: 2
First: 7/27/2005 Last: 7/28/2005 |
I have a comment on bensimo's reply about measuring the perceptions of just executives and managers: the problem is that their perceptions of their behavior, attitudes, etc. is significangtly different from how their direct reports and employees see them.
In my experience, you need some checks and balances in the process, perhaps by doing an upward appraisal and seeing how employees rate their managers and executives. The outlook is always rosier at the top and many managers and execs. have no idea how their employees really feel. |
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employee engagement
posted at 7/28/2005 6:01 AM EDT
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Posts: 1
First: 7/28/2005 Last: 7/28/2005 |
PJJ, I am on the MBA faculty of a private Midwestern university and, with a few of my colleagues, have been intensely studying work engagement for the last several years. We have developed an engagement assessment tool that strongly correlates to the Gallup Study results. We are continuing to do statistical analysis on the tool and have had excellent results. This tool is available to you and your organization at minimal cost.
We define work engagement as what occurs when employees values, beliefs and goals are aligned with those of the organization such that they are personally committed to contributing to the accomplishment of the organizations mission. The remarkable thing about focusing organizational improvement on engagement rather than on productivity studies or job satisfaction studies or motivational programs is that improvement in engagement improves BOTH productivity AND morale. This hybrid focus on both productivity and morale means that when you appropriately target strategies that improve engagement in a significant way, you create lasting improvement that doesnt deteriorate once the new wears off. This makes engagement assessment and improvement a much more powerful continuous organizational improvement strategy than motivation or productivity enhancement strategies du jour that improve one at the cost of the other. The details of when and how those strategies are crafted are determined by the engagement issues that exist in your organization. The trick (and fun) is in determining whats really going on and developing strategies that target the real engagement issues that exist in each individual organization. In answer to your last question, yes, in work we have done we are finding that a focus on improved productivity AND morale through very specifically targeted strategies can make a significant improvement in the effectiveness (and bottom line) of the organization. It is also a crucial element in attracting and retaining top quality employees because it helps make your organization a great place to work. If you would like to discuss this more or find out how to do an engagement assessment for yourself or your organization, let me know. |
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