5 Ways to "RAZE" Your Employee Engagement Scores! #4 of 5 - "Obsess for Success"

Five Ways to ‘Raze’ Your Employee Engagement Scores

#4: Make sure and spend two special months obsessing about employee engagement!!!

The 4th way to steamroll your engagement scores is to make sure that your employees lose any level of trust left in your leadership. How can we do that you ask? When it comes to employee engagement, just make sure and follow this recipe and “obsess for success”. Make sure that the only two months that the words “employee engagement” come out of your mouth are the month before the survey and the month after the scores come back. This will ensure the final death knell for your chances of ever improving those scores. 

The ‘Jeopardy’ Theme

Of course, there is always an awkward pause during the time in-between the end of the survey and when the results come back… during this uncomfortable time, it seems appropriate that the theme from the game show ‘Jeopardy’ should be playing in the overhead speaker system.

Nothing screams “we really DON’T care” than the total obsession about the topic of an engaged workforce for only two months out of the year and not a peep about it in-between – particularly the month between taking and score-card time!.  

Bonus Tip: “It’s Chicken Time!”

As much as your employees love fried chicken first thing in the morning, you buying everyone Chick-Fil-A chicken biscuits the day the employee engagement survey comes out won’t move the needle in terms of long-term employee engagement (see tip #5). Save the companies money and your own reputation if you’re inauthentic about getting the truth, not just buttering them up for good scores the day of the assessment.

Remember! Keep treating those ailing scores with a placebo of false concern about engagement for those two magic months… your employees will never be able to pick up on the insincerity (or the concern on your face that YOUR evaluation and bonus depend on these scores). 

Challenge: How can you incorporate the topic of employee engagement and the survey into the daily, weekly, and monthly goals of the organization or your business unit? How can you carry the conversation and ‘engage’ the staff in conversation between assessment time and score-card time? How can you find out where they think the scores will land and game-plan beforehand what their thoughts are on ways to improve?

About the Author:

David A. Miles, Ph.D. is an organizational leadership and development expert and the Founder & Principal of Dr. Dave Leadership Corp. – A Professional Consulting Firm. Dave helps leaders move from success to significance, helping them build and develop strong leaders, teams, and organizations to improve bottom-line results and profits. Dr. Miles can be found at www.DrDaveMiles.com.