How do you analyze team motivation and engagement data?

Analyzing whether or not your team is motivated and engaged is vital to any organization's success, and we feel this starts on day one - in the hiring process. It's critical that each individual is aligned with the organization's values. This is the first key step in ensuring that each team member is committed to the same values (and objectives) of the organization itself. This helps to create a "team". We have found that implementing surveys reveals important data as time progresses. Group feedback sessions to assess motivation are great and require less time than individual sessions, however, not everyone feels comfortable to speak up in larger groups. Therefore, making time to have individual sessions has worked well for us.

I only measure 1 thing. Employee NPS. Twice annually I poll all employees - with a 1 question survey. "On a scale of 1-10, how enthusiastically would you recommend this as a place to work?" We then calculate the NPS result. On the thank you page I write this - "Thanks tons for your rating. What is 1 thing we could to do make this an even better company to work for". We do the survey twice per year. Doing this, for years, is how we turned 1-800-GOT-JUNK? into the #2 company in Canada to work for when I was their COO.

It‘s very important to be reflected. With that kind of data, like simple talking to your team and most important is ?LISTEN“ to them. Grow with that feedback and don‘t keep it for yourself - communicate to the next higher level.

Many times employees are concerned about their privacy when employers collect data. This means they do not want to engage with collecting data in house. There are many vendors like Culture Amp, Tiny Pulse, and Office Vibe that provide platforms for employee feedback and engagement. With these vendors you can collect, aggregate, visualize, and report data about the organization.

My view is that collecting data should start straight from the hiring process. When you hire someone new as an additional asset to your team is important to understand what motivates that individual and how that aligns with what motivated the rest of the team. Some individuals are motivated by financials, some by career progression, some by other factors. It is utterly important to understand what motivates each member of the team and what is the common factor among them in order to reward them accordingly and keep them motivated and engaged. I think a worrying number of organisations don't pay enough importance to staff satisfaction and don't fully understand the effects that happy staff/ unhappy staff can have on the organisation.

Analyzing team motivation and engagement data involves a meticulous organization of the collected information. Utilizing tools like spreadsheets, charts, and graphs allows for easy comparison and visualization of relevant variables and trends. By categorizing the data by team, role, project, or time period, and calculating averages and percentages, a clear and consistent analysis can be obtained, aiding in making informed decisions to enhance team performance and productivity.

Organizing data is essential. Since we are in the business of co-creating new leaders, we determine as a collective what strategies to utilize, when organizing data, so that everyone can participate in understanding the data once it's collected. We then empower the leaders who commit to taking on this responsibility and accountability, to choose which methods work best for them, to effectively collect and organize the data and then present it where it is easily digestible for the team. Some of the methods we have worked with to organize and analyze data are spreadsheets, whiteboards, and different google docs. Each leader takes on the responsibility of collecting and organizing specific data and then shares it with the rest of the team.

In my opinion it‘s not that easy to answer but a good start of how to interpret that data. Most important is, for me, not to loose the focus on what really matters. We speak about motivation on business side. It shouldn‘t get or taken personally and evaluate the collected data and make workshops to find a good direction for the solution

Interpreting data can be tricky. Every person is unique and can therefore, interpret things differently. As long as each team member is committed to the same thing (values of organization), consensus can occur and everyone can experience being heard and seen in their opinions/feedback. Example: The company's values are dignity and belonging. When interpreting the data, the motivation (and agreement upon hiring) behind the team engagement is dignity and belonging. When viewed from the perspective of - "Is what we did, aligned with dignity and belonging" - the "strengths and weaknesses" conversation doesn't occur as a moral judgement conversation. It's just simply looking at if certain actions worked or not, with values based alignment.

In this section, the leader can learn a great deal from their team and has the opportunity to empower other leaders on the team. Reverse learning and feedback are extremely powerful. This would require the leader to see themselves AS the team and to deeply and actively listen. There is a "Hero" Leader mentality and it's creating more followers. How do we change this? We start by empowering each human being in recognizing their innate ability to be a leader. No one single person makes a company successful. It is a team of people co-creating, together, as a team. That doesn't mean that every person will choose to lead. But if they do, it's our job to empower them. The younger generations are our future leaders - not our future followers.

Do not collect data and feedback if you are not willing to acknowledge receiving the information and addressing next steps. Some things may or may not be in the purview of an employer’s control. When something is not in your control that too should be communicated to close the feedback loop because employees want to know that they have been heard.

Having spent part of my career working at Peakon, I can offer a little insight here... The most critical, and yet most undervalued part of engagement is the actions which come off the back of it. I strongly believe that it's the role of several folks in the company to do this. How to make it happen? Requires involvement of people team to ensure analysis passed to leadership, clear themes reviewed, clear action plan created on themes, then extensive support for line managers, who have the direct interaction with folks daily. Often, the problem is that they simply don't know what to do next. Help them with this and you'll get far better results!

Embrace the ACT framework as you harness data for enhanced team motivation and engagement. Align actions with data insights, driving positive change. Cultivate Clarity by recognizing achievements and setting challenging goals. Transparently address concerns, promoting a supportive environment. Utilize data for constructive feedback and coaching, nurturing growth. Transparency in recognizing accomplishments fosters motivation. Embrace transparency by addressing concerns and fostering a supportive environment. Continuously monitor outcomes, making necessary adjustments. By embracing ACT, you transform data into a catalyst for improved motivation and engagement, driving sustained success.

Acting on data is the most important part of data collection. We should only collect information that we are willing and able to act on. I have seen organizations take the time to ask questions, gather engagement data, report the results, and then not make any changes. This destroys trust and motivation and makes people less likely to share how they feel the next time they are asked. Leaders who report the data and also share what they are going to do in response, even just one or two action items, build trust and show people their leadership is responsive to their needs.

These survey methods have been applied for years now and I honestly believe they hold little value. Engagement and motivation are fluctuating emotional states- surveys only capture how people are feeling on any given day so I find them to be an unreliable representation of the overall employee experience. The anonymous nature of this method also decreases its effect. If companies REALLY want to understand how employees are feeling, and help improve their situation, they need to teach managers how to coach. A coaching approach at work involves managers taking time to regularly check-in, ask powerful questions and actively listen to clarify issues and agree a way forward. Everyone's needs are different.

Let us consider a survey is done and the outcomes have been segmented. A mere follow through on the results and acknowledgement of the chinks in the armour of the team fabric can go a long way in motivation and continous engagement. If a team member finds it a safe environment to avoid anonymity and still state his feedback, that by itself is an indication of motivation, in hope that his opinion will be considered. If that can be respected with a follow through, you have already crossed half the bridge. It is a tough topic, nevertheless can be mastered with some introspection and enterprise.

It's critical to understand what business issue you are trying to solve with this data. That will help you identify which measures would be most useful and what you will do with the results. Multiple surveys and no follow up is worse than never asking in the first place.

Engagement can be extremely volatile: One minute fully engaged. A notification of an extreme event eg death of a parent. Engagement at work can be completely lost. The lost engagement can be for an indeterminate period. Maybe minutes to several years. The engagement level may fluctuate over this period and could be elevated over previous norms eg if the work being done is wrt seeking a cancer cure. Alternatively the engagement level may be completely lost forever. Eg the worker is a wagon driver, the parent was a wagon driver and was involved in a fatal crash.