Engagement - Survey less... Talk more...

Lots of organisations run an engagement survey,?receive thousands of data points back, then try and analyse the data to determine the issues and spot trends, is this really Employee Engagement? Don’t get me wrong,?surveys are a great way to draw a line in the sand to understand how engaged the business is, but my view is that there are some fundamental issues with surveys.

Picture the scene, as an employee?you are?working away and an email comes through asking you to fill out the annual employee engagement survey. Don’t worry it is all confidential and no one can trace the information?back to you. At this point there are a number of things that go through your head depending on how engaged I am in my job:

• Complete it and be 100% truthful about how I perceive the company, irrelevant of how I am feeling (engaged or disengaged)
• Fill it in but don’t tell the truth about how I feel for fear of them finding out who filled it it, just tick what you know your boss / executives want to hear
• Decide not to fill it in at all because either I am disengaged and fearful or that you know nothing will change in the organisation

What the survey doesn’t tell you is how the person is truly feeling, what is going to truly engage them, what their passions are and how they feel about their performance. So rather than survey’s should your managers and leaders become better at effective communication, build trust with employees and create actions to help develop them and the business. I hear you say, yes, but that is easier said than done.

More often than not managers will very quickly fall into the trap of KPI’s and performance conversations, how are they achieving against these and if they are?underachieving what are they doing wrong rather than what is going well. Ever considered what people enjoy doing out of work, what their personal values are and how these could?integrate with their job? If you understand this it helps you get people doing what they truly enjoy you will start driving their engagement levels up and see increased levels of productivity and this makes Engagement truly visible in the organisation rather than just a score!

The Engage to Succeed Model works on the following key principles; Passion & Performance and puts the employee at the heart of the conversation, after all engagement has to be owned by the individual.

Passion – What is?most important to the employee, what are they truly passionate about in their job, social life and their values (Personal & Work). Align work projects to values / motivators, use personal passions for ‘coffee chats’, support in their key focus areas and create an environment for open safe conversations.

Performance – How are they doing against job description / targets / competencies,?keep these discussions regular and always?coach and offer support to help them over achieve. If they are underperforming be sure to explain why and find out the reason, it is often related to ‘Passion’ and can be overcome. Don’t brush these conversations under the carpet and let them spiral out of control?before it is too late, always be open, honest and support wherever you can.

By having effective conversations with employees about their own personal & work passion alongside job performance?will mean you can easily identify the key issues that will?help employees become more engaged in their work.?The higher levels of?passion and performance will equal high levels of productivity which in turn will?create a much more engaged workforce, remember, engagement is very contagious!

Engagement is not something that you can train and develop, it has to be owned by the individual and supported by the organisation or management. The forgotten element is making it meaningful to employees, having a model or concept that individuals understand and can see how actions can support their own levels of engagement, the Engage to Succeed Model helps bring this to life.

This?is not an overnight fix and will take time for employees to feel safe in having open discussions and managers knowing how to run effective engagement conversations but you will see a significant shift over time. There are a number of common mistakes that can happen though:

? Organisations say it is safe to speak up but employees don’t believe it

? Managers?don’t follow through on actions and it becomes inconsistent

? Employees don’t trust leaders so don’t open up about what they really need

? Leaders assume their employees are engaged…. without testing it

? Individuals still believe that engagement is a company issue, not theirs

The recommendation is don’t rely on data from surveys but have regular effective conversations with your employees, listen to their needs, take actions to build engagement levels and constantly check your findings.

At Engage to Succeed we help organisations transition away from the survey and embed the Engage to Succeed model across their organisation addressing all of this. To find out more about the Engage to Succeed Model then follow the link in the comments section.