Action speaks louder than words...

I went to an actual real life conference last week for the first time in over 2 years. It felt a little strange to begin with to be in such close proximity to so many other people.

But what was really interesting was some of the key take-aways from the meeting. It was all about employee engagement and one of the organisations presenting was sharing the findings from a recent survey.

The major message was that there is a disconnect between what HR think they are doing and how employees feel about the same issues. One of the key areas was related to the whole process of surveying employees. For the younger of you reading this, a little modern history.

You don't have to go back too far to come to a time when management didn't really care about what employees felt. In countries that were heavily unionised there was often a great deal of animosity between "the management" and the "workers".

In the 1970's several industries were crippled by continuous strikes and union actions that made it very difficult to be competitive. So labour relations (as they were called back then) were often strained to breaking point.

It was very much seen as a them and us situation where the workforce felt aggrieved that management was out to take advantage of them any chance they could get - whilst at the same time management felt that the workforce had no real ideal of the pressures they were under and didn't understand that they were just trying to run a business and keep people in a job.

Thankfully that approach softened on both sides (in the majority of industries anyway) and there was a gradual coming together of these two very different philosophies.

Management began to realise that it was important to keep employees happy at the very least to try and make sure that there were in the right frame of mind to deliver good service to the customers.

Likewise employees could see that if they were to make excessive demands, competition from the Far East and developing nations would mean that their products and services would not be competitive and they would all be out of a job.

Hence the employee survey was born. Management decided it would be a good idea if they could get some idea of exactly how people were feeling so they could make an attempt to rectify any issues that they were not satisfied with.

I'm pretty sure you would have all taken one at some point in your careers. Perhaps you have even been responsible for organising one. If you have read any of my previous articles you will no doubt be aware that they have gone through several iterations.

Satisfaction was the first generation. Based on customer satisfaction surveys the questions were usually some form of "how satisfied are you with (take your pick at this point, could be pay, your manager, your career growth etc.)".

These early attempts were a good start but pretty soon people began to realise that not only is it impossible to satisfy everyone all of the time (just think about what happens when 10 people apply for the same promotion, 9 of them will be dissatisfied as they didn't get it), but there is no proven statistical evidence to show that a satisfied employee is going to do a good job, remain loyal and go the extra mile.

In my career I have seen many satisfied employees who come in and do the bare minimum every day. In traditional satisfaction survey data they would appear to be great employees, but what value are they actually adding to the organisation?

In the last 20 years or so the mood has shifted and most companies run what they call an engagement survey. I say what they call an engagement survey as in many cases that is all that is different. They changed the title from satisfaction to engagement!

The questions remain pretty much the same.

At the conference I just attended there were many organisations claiming that they can help you measure engagement. Yet when I asked them exactly how they define engagement, they couldn't really answer.

When I pressed a little further and asked if they differentiated between transactional engagement and emotional engagement they were positively perplexed.

Just to rub salt into the wound, when asked how they had validated their questions and what evidence they had to support the issues they were asking about related to the various different types of engagement an employee can have, they started to look for an excuse to go and talk with someone else!

The latest and probably most unhelpful measure is employee happiness.

I was surrounded by organisations that claim to be able to tell you just how happy your employees are.

Again my first question to them was just how do you define happiness?

The blank stares I received just highlighted the fact that they haven't really thought this through.

I tried to be helpful and query whether they were talking about eudaemonic happiness, the kind espoused by Aristotle and based on living a life well led and in line with your virtues, or were they thinking about Hedonistic happiness, the type where we seek pleasure of all manner?

Again, no real answer was forth coming.

So where do you get your questions from and how do you know that they are the things that really make people happy?

Where is the data and scientific evidence to show that a "happy" employee is going to work harder and stay with you longer if you can't even describe what kind of happiness you are trying to measure?

Regardless of what kind of measures you are trapping, the key finding from the research was based around what happens after the survey.

This is where there is the main discrepancy between what HR feel they are doing and what is "experienced or seen" by the workforce.

A whopping 85% of HR professionals feel that they doing a good job of turning feedback into action. Yet only 14% of employees feel that their employer is very effective at using feedback. Who knows where the reality is? Somewhere in-between perhaps.

What is clear however, is the current system of employee surveys isn't working very well.

Why is this and what can be done about it?

Firstly, most employees think that the employee survey is a bit of a chore and a duty that has to be performed.

You can understand this. If I give you my feedback time after time and nothing seems to change as a result, I am bound to start to question the validity of the whole process.

Is management serious about understanding my views or is it just a tick box exercise to show to the board or those that audit key processes?

Secondly, are we asking about the right things?

Let's just give senior management the benefit of the doubt for a moment.

Let's say they are genuine in their attempts to get some valid feedback to try and act upon. What if we are placing too much emphasis on the wrong things?

Things that you might think is driving engagement but in fact things about which very little can be done.

If we are just to ask about things that people think is driving their engagement, don't bother running a survey, I can tell you the results now.

Can I have more money please?

When do I get my next promotion?

Can you lighten my workload and give me a little less stress?

Can I have a more flexible working schedule for a better work life balance?

Better perks and benefits.

You get the picture. So what are you going to do? Give everyone who asks for it these things?

Not possible in my experience.

If we are to run these surveys effectively we must be sure that the questions truly relate to the kind of engagement that employees have and that we can focus on the higher order needs that generate emotional engagement.

In our experience most employees are engaged at the lower level called transactional engagement. This is where factors like pay, promotions, perks etc. have a much greater importance in the mind of the employee.

The problem is that we can't improve these for everybody to the level they would like. That is why we should focus on the issues that drive emotional commitment.

Respect, achievement, recognition, growth and a feeling of being valued for example.

In most cases this just requires a different leadership style and philosophy.

Could this be the reason why so many employees feel that nothing is happening after these surveys? Because we are asking about the wrong things that cannot really be changed, management struggle to make some minor changes.

HR feel that a lot has been done and employees are saying they don't see any real difference.

So making sure you are asking the right questions and measuring the right things is vital.

But there is another issue that is leading to employees feeling the whole exercise is a waste of time.

Frequency of questioning.

Only 16% of organisations that run surveys are just conducting them on an annual basis. For some reason they feel that we have to ask questions more often. Most are running quarterly, monthly, weekly and even daily surveys!

Just imagine that for a second. You are already feeling that nothing seems to change after you have been surveyed and now you are getting questions everyday!

Just how is that going to help? If anything you are just making the situation worse.

I asked you this before and did nothing about it so I am going to ask you again! Now tell me, are you feeling motivated? I don't think so.

So what is the answer?

There are some short term fixes.

Stop asking you employees what they think and feel at all points of the day. One of the attendees at the conference was proudly showing one of the daily feedback messages they had received from an employee.

It said "lovely weather today and I had a great journey into work." Brilliant. Very happy for them.

But what can the management of the company do about that? What happens f there is a torrential downpour tomorrow and they get soaked? Let's stop asking employees too many questions when we haven't done anything about the last ones yet. And let's not ask them about too many things we cannot control.

Set people's expectations.

Employees need to know that just because we are asking you how you feel on a certain issue, that doesn't mean that we can make changes in these areas. People are grown-ups. They know the commercial reality of life.

Even if everyone comes back and says they would like a pay-rise, is the organisation going to be in a position to give them all one?

Highly unlikely. If we all want a promotion, is that really possible?

Set short, medium and long term change goals.

When you have the feedback from a survey, look for the quick hits. What are the things that can be done quickly that don't take too much effort (or cost too much money)?

Do the same for the things that can be changed before the next cycle survey.

Then look at the issues that will take 12-24 months to change.

Things like revamping the performance review system. This will take several months of consultation to redesign, another few months to train the managers in how to apply it and at least 12 months for everyone to go through one cycle of the new system.

So what is the point of asking about it until 24 months have passed? You are just going to remind people that they said they were not happy with it and you haven't done anything about it yet!

Which brings us to the final point. Stop surveying so much. Unless you are going through a period of rapid change where you need to keep your finger on the pulse, even quarterly surveys is too frequent. I can't even think of a situation where monthly, weekly and daily questions would be useful.

You are just causing a problem that doesn't need to exist. If you keep asking with such a short time intervals of course you won't notice any difference. Nobody has had a chance to change anything!

And as with any change process, even where you are doing things, unless people know, these changes may not be visible to them. The answer - communicate, communicate and communicate again.

Bombard them with the status of the change programmes, no matter how small they may seem.

Use different media. Send out video updates. Have a discussion board. Hold town hall meetings (virtual or in person) where you can discuss the status of various projects.

So are the survey findings accurate?

Are HR really not doing that good a job of translating feedback into action?

I don't know. But what I am certain of is that we have ask better questions, ask them less often and replace analysis with actual real life change.

Click on the video link below to look at a system we have developed to take your measurement into action.

https://watch.wave.video/LU3cmO6UNwgf43wV