Introduction
The most important element of running an employee engagement study is to act on the results. Insights from the analysis must be embedded across the organisation to deliver real change. There are four key stages involved in the successful implementation and activation of employee engagement survey results:
#1 Communicating the results back to employees
- As well as producing an overall strategic report focus on bespoke reports for each department within the organisation
- We recommend reports are distributed to relevant departmental directors for their review and consideration
- Departmental directors should then communicate high level engagement themes to employees by email
- Following this communication it is recommended they hold face to face briefings with teams in their department
- These briefings will communicate the more detailed findings, highlighting high performing areas and opportunities for improvement
- They will also give employees the chance to provide further feedback, ideas and suggestions
#2 Getting to the heart of engagement
- Some groups of employees are consistently less engaged than others, i.e. certain departmental or demographic groups - we know which engagement attributes they scored less positively than other groups, but we do not always know why
- To ensure effective action targeted at the real issues we suggest focus groups are conducted with a sample of employees in the least engaged groups
- The feedback from these groups will reveal why they rated engagement items in the way they did, and what behaviours or actions would have the biggest positive impact in shifting this perception
#3 Pinpointing best practice
- There are also pockets of highly engaged employees in any organisation - this can be because of their innate positive personality or their surroundings (or both)
- These represent best practice which can be shared and migrated to other entities
- We recommend a brief study on what leaders/managers in these areas are doing that delivers superior engagement
- This will pinpoint specific and real examples of behaviour or action and can be achieved through interviews with managers and focus groups with employees
- These outputs will provide a guide that can be shared with other managers and can be communicated via manager briefings
- Depending on the nature of the practices identified, these can be built into:
- Selection criteria for manager appointments and promotions
- Management development programmes
- 360 degree feedback and performance management processes
#4 Action planning
- We recommend that action planning involves both department leaders and managers
- Identify two strengths to be maintained and two weaknesses to improve
- Team discussion on the engagement questions pinpoints root causes to inform effective action planning
- Team-based action planning has a significant impact on engagement levels - team takes accountability for implementing actions
- Provide guides to help managers lead action planning with their teams
- Manager conducts Engagement Review with selected employees on a one-to-one basis
- Managers identify the different needs and engagers of different employees in the team and adapt their style to maximise individual engagement
Summary
To accurately track changes in employee engagement a survey should be run at least once a year. Pulse checks and climate surveys can also give more regular progress updates.
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