Gauging Engagement from Home

2020 has been a year of incredible change. Perhaps the understatement of the century (thus far)! Large centralized offices seem to have turned into empty deserts, with more people seeking permanent refuge at home. What does this mean for your employees, their engagement, and ultimately the performance of your company?

This article will give you insights and perspectives on measuring engagement for your remote employees. Providing a clear voice to your employees provides the opportunity to improve the employee experience and make a positive impact on company performance.

REMOTE WORKING IS THE NEW NORM

Office-based workers quickly pivoted to working from home earlier this year. By all accounts, the trend will continue into 2021 and beyond. Although we should not expect the high percentage of working from home that we experience during the height of the pandemic, we can expect the continual climb in flexible, hybrid, and full-time remote working.

In fact, almost 60% of US workers indicated that they would prefer to "work remotely as much as possible" once restrictions on businesses and school closures are lifted. This is according to a Gallup Panel conducted earlier in April 2020.

WELL-BEING CHALLENGED

With remote working comes new challenges. Before the pandemic, remote working was an optional benefit for select workers. Workers who put their name forward for consideration and had the fortitude and type of work that would align with remote working might be granted the opportunity.

During the pandemic, remote became a necessity. But there are significant challenges. In a recent study by The Principal Well-Being Index, 50% of employers said more employees than ever used mental health benefits and asked questions about mental health resources since COVID-19 hit.

LISTEN TO YOUR EMPLOYEES

To best help your employees, you must listen, think, and respond to their needs. There are many great tools on the market that help with the first step: Listen.

There are a multitude of employee engagement measurement solutions on the market. The key to selecting the right solution is to first clearly understand the problem you are solving for, and to start simple. You can scale as you learn more.

BUT.... before selecting the tool, select the right strategies to put in place.

THE RIGHT LISTENING STRATEGY

LARGE-SCALE ANNUAL. Try an annual, larger-scale questionnaire survey. It can set a baseline on employee sentiment and engagement toward working conditions, compensation and benefits, challenges, rewards, communication, etc. You can also delve into areas such as feelings toward direct managers, company leadership, goals, and colleague relationships. 

PULSE SURVEYS. Then do regular, short-form “pulse surveys.” Ideally, ask three rating questions (on a scale of 1-10 or 1-5). Ask one question for a short written response that reflects the issues in your large-scale survey. Send similar surveys when new topics come up – such as the sudden switch to remote work and its challenges.

LISTENING SESSIONS. Over the years I have organized and run many types of small-group listening sessions. With Walmart, these sessions were incredibly effective in that we were able to gather context and on-the-ground learnings. If you are concerned about the scalability of listening sessions, Walmart is the world's largest employer - listening sessions scale!

ONE-ON-ONES. To bolster results and get even more candid feedback, do one-on-one interviews. Those can be in a casual setting, but you’ll still want to stay focused on specific topics. It might be a good idea to get an HR rep to do the interviews. Do this in case of employees become uncomfortable giving any negative feedback to their bosses. Ask questions, and give employees time and space to reply. Include an open-ended question to give employees a chance to bring up any other issues.

BE PERSISTENT

Managers should have a daily (or near-daily) cadence of checking in with their team members during the workweek. Companies might want to try weekly focus groups, too, when they can go over a set of engagement questions with a diverse group of employees. It’ll help the People Team get a better view of how employees are adapting to remote work, regardless of their roles. You can also use the forums to offer resources where you find it necessary and help employees across functions collaborate and interact.

BE PROACTIVE

Most employees say they can give their employers feedback. But 70% of employees say no one does anything with their insight, according to Workplace from Facebook experts. If you ask for feedback and don’t follow up, employees will become disengaged from the surveys – and their work. 

When you want to measure engagement communicate:

• what you want to achieve by getting feedback
• how you’ll act on the results
• both positive and negative results
• explanations of what you’ll do and won’t do as a result of what you heard, and
• updates on what you’re doing to improve engagement.

BE INTENTIONAL

Ask awesome questions. Regardless of how, when, and where you measure employee engagement, you want to ask great questions. You can adapt these into rating questions (on a scale of 1-10 or 1-5) or use one or two for short written responses.

• What challenges do you experience in comparison to when you worked in the office? (Alternative: On a scale of 1-5, 1=quite less difficult and 5=much more difficult, How are your work challenges now in comparison to when you worked on-site?) 
• Can you tell us what you like best and least about working remotely?
• What are the high and low points in a typical day? 
• Do you know of equipment or process improvements that would make things 10% better? (Alternative: On a scale of 1-5, 1=quite less difficult and 5=much more difficult, How do you find remote work equipment and technology in comparison to when you worked on-site?) 
• What technology issues have you encountered? 
• Moving forward, what would your ideal workstation be? 
• What do you do to take breaks/recharge? (Alternative: On a scale of 1-5, 1=quite less difficult and 5=much more difficult, How would you rate your ability to take breaks and recharge while working from home?) 
• Are you able to fully disconnect when on vacation or at the end of the day? (Alternative: On a scale of 1-5, 1=quite less difficult and 5=much more difficult, How would you rate your ability to fully disconnect at the end of the day or during time off?) 
• Have challenges from your previous setup evolved, vanished, or increased?
• What have you learned moving to remote work?  
• Are there ways to make things easier?
• What benefits/advantages does remote work have compared to those in the office? (Alternative: On a scale of 1-5, 1=none at all and 5=much better, How would you rate the benefits/advantages of working from home in comparison to when you worked on-site?)

GET STARTED

Now is the time to get started. If your company already had an engagement measurement platform, accelerate the frequency and focus the questions to gather insights for your remote workers. If you haven't put in place pulse checks and check-ins with your employees, managers, and teams, make this a new priority.

Good luck!

Source articles include: "Best practices to measure remote employee engagement"; "Survey: Do Office-Based Employees Want Digital Engagement Programs?"; Gartner; and Forbes.