Are we ready to move beyond the Employee Engagement Measurement Machine?

Can we implement an engagement strategy that actual improves outcomes?

Jon Ivanhoe

It’s that time of year again; Like clockwork and precision, my company is going through its annual employee opinion survey campaign in pursuit of understanding employee sentiment.?

I have been through several engagement survey cycles before and yet each year anew, anticipation fills my mind. Like with most HR-led initiatives the project was skillfully handled and the work was masterfully completed.?As we wait to close-out the survey collection period, I can’t help but imagine if this is the same feeling a political campaign has on election night awaiting returns? As we near the finish line, ironically and somewhat purposely, the marathon begins, and I ponder a new concern:?

Have we put ourselves in position to be noticeable better than last year?

Noticeable better is aspirational not just about score improvement, but how the engagement scores will enable better understanding of the levers needed to achieve improved outcomes. My mind continues to wonder.?Could other companies be experiencing a “Ground Hog Day” Syndrome, repeating processes, measuring scores and action planning, expecting different results, and not delivering on updated strategy only to wind up close to where they started? ?Showing commitment and checking the box to completing a cycle doesn’t equate to managing an engagement strategy and yet many organizations find themselves here.??Why?

Worse, have we lost the connection to why we are measuring engagement in the first place and how an improved engagement strategy is beneficial??Have we evolved into a sophisticated engagement “measurement machine” celebrating our ability to launch, analyze and action plan and yet miss the mark on activating a fully supported engagement strategy? ??It would seem impossible that companies would heavily invest in the “Measurement Machine” and then drop the ball on advancing their engagement strategy, but it does happen.

How to Move beyond the Measurement Machine

Ask yourself these questions to determine if your organization is ready to move past the “Measurement Machine”

1.??????How effective has your organization been in tying engagement drivers and scores to actual business results? The research is clear that connections exist, but is it applied in your organization??In a 2019 KPMG Study companies with highly engaged employees have a 36% greater retention rate and outperform their competition by 147%.??In a more recent Glint study, employees who report having clarity on their work priorities are 3.95x more likely to plan to stay at the company for 2 years; 7.1x more likely to say they rarely think about looking for a new job and 4.5x as likely to say they are happy at their current company.?Suffice it to say, employee engagement can be a significant competitive edge for companies that know how to harness and measure its power.?

2.??????Has your organization been successful in using a hypothesized-based approach on engagement drivers and last year’s results, to forecast expected engagement??If serious about action planning, you should see improvements in some areas from last year. Organizations routinely submit financial and headcount forecasts and predict turnover as an input to planning.?Understanding expected engagement should laser-focus the organization on where there are issues even before employees take the survey.?Survey results can pinpoint where surprises exist.

?3.??????What prescriptive analytics is used in action planning, and can that be tied back to business outcomes or executive level goals? Organizations often distribute the planning to lower levels but are there opportunities to cascade the learning across the enterprise

4.??????Is your organization measuring the correlation between engagement score and productivity??Talent potential? ?Performance??Retention? ?Leadership??

5.??????When results are reported is there a deeper discussion on score movement (up or down) across different dimensions of the organization without correlating to business results?

6.??????Does your company tie the movement of engagement scores to leader bonuses?

?7.??????When you take your own survey, are you honest with your responses and do you wonder whether others are reporting their results honestly? and what exactly does that mean? ?

?8.??????Most importantly, does your company go beyond the engagement survey as the pinnacle of data collection, to embrace multiple touch points (pulse, focus groups, manager-led feedback, etc.) as part of the overall engagement strategy?

Rely on an Engagement Strategy - Don’t settle for "Score Planning"

Many companies recognize the importance of employee engagement but seem to be misdirecting their efforts at measuring employee engagement instead of fixing it.?Great effort is done in delivering the employee engagement experience but how do we move past the measurement approach to truly impact outcomes? ??When companies show that they are indeed measuring engagement but then fail to take the right action to correct issues it shows that resources are spent more on the assessment than the solution. In some extreme cases, it makes companies look like they lack either empathy or competency.

Most companies recognize the data fallacies and challenges with engagement score data.

1.??????Humans are Messy

An obvious concern about solely relying on engagement scores is that humans are unreliable, biased, often dishonest, are naturally difficult to accurately measure and will likely yield inaccurate results. ??Often employees feel pressured to score the company higher either to help the manager make a bonus or to avoid being labeled a poor employee.?People want to be honest, but they won’t because no matter how you promote anonymity and protection of the data there is always a concern that employees will be punished for their honesty. ?

Engagement scores may often widely vary (year over year) or even from homogenous dimensions and attributes in a scattered shot format because human judgement is involved.?This phenomenon is a measurement error called noise.??In the book, Noise, A flaw in Human Judgment (Kahneman, Sibony, Sunstein, 2021) Kahneman contends that with matters of judgment (i.e., responding to a survey) noise (defined as the variability across humans) and bias contribute to error.?Noise is universal in physiology and psychology. Variability across individuals is a biological given making noise and equally dangerous partner to bias in with human judgment error. ?Reduce noise by using other collection devices (pulse surveys, focus groups, feedback sessions) to validate specific issues in the organization.

2.??????Dispelling Engagement Myths

Believing in the myth that employees want to be engaged at work (no, they want to be safe, happy, and valued) and that high marks will lead to loyalty can be disastrous.??Not all employees want to be engaged or have the capacity to be engaged at work. In fact, low scores are not indicative of malcontents.?Very few employees are malcontents.?Where neglectful managers, low recognition, poorly paid and dull jobs exist, you will likely find disengaged employees.?Employees are quite willing to bring an engaged mindset for the right employer, but engagement isn’t an employee goal. ?

3.??????Treating the “Measurement Device” instead of treating the problem

Engagement scores become one measurement reading.?Blood pressure readings can signal hypertension and can serve as a leading indicator of potential heart health problems. And yet anyone that suffers from “White Coat Syndrome” knows that readings can be elevated in a doctor’s office.?Other testing factors at the time of the reading that will raise blood pressure include, stress and anxiety, eating (or not eating,) crossed legs, full bladder, blood pressure cuff placement, alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine, too much talking and cold temperatures. ?The reading is a measurement in a point in time, but doctors will obtain multiple readings over multiple time periods to offer a diagnosis.??Most organizations realize that a one and done measurement strategy is least effective.?And though most companies profess to have an engagement strategy too often it crumbles under the weight of managing the survey, analyzing, and reporting scores and action planning.

What is the engagement score supposed to reveal anyway?

When, in 1990, William Kahn coined the term, employee engagement, his observations and writings centered around employees’ lack of motivation and involvement, employees who were unfilled at work and why that might be.?He used the term, “engagement” and “disengagement “because those words evoked very clearly the movements that people make toward and away from their work, other people and the roles that they had.”??“The engagement concept developed based on the premise that individuals can make real choices about how much of the real personal selves they would reveal and express in their work.”?In 1990, it was assumed but not effectively tested that “engaged” employees produced better outcomes.?Kahn wrote (in 2015):

“There is more sophistication, better studies linking the connection and more opportunities at work, as we have evolved our management and leadership styles. ?The problems still exist with giving people voice over their work, what they do, how they do it and making work intrinsically meaningful and balancing that as manager continue to exert control and influence over others particularly with the demands to produce and perform.”

Today, as Kathleen Hogan, CHRO Microsoft, ?recognized in her article, “Why Leaders Can’t Ignore the Human Energy Crisis, “…social unrest, geopolitical instability, and economic uncertainty causing strain on the invaluable human capital that keeps our companies running.” Rampant burnout persists and can’t be solved by annual survey campaign.?Microsoft, evolved from measuring how productive and engaged employees are to how well are they thriving.?The change may appear subtle, but the back-end work and cultural strategy that Microsoft employed laid the foundation.?Microsoft recognized that their Employee Value proposition required moving beyond the annual survey measurement.

Embracing an Engagement Strategy means being Prescriptive

For many the pinnacle is the Annual Engagement Survey.?The research continues to show that people will trust their leaders to the degree they are trustworthy, that they would share information if it’s not used against them and that they want to and will work hard for companies that care about their happiness.?However, if the focal point stops at the “measurement machine,” If you don’t do it right a survey is a demoralizing waste of time, energy, and money.?Use the results of the engagement study to be a prescriptive tool to show what you need to change and how.?

Then continue and don’t stop.?Wash, Rinse and Repeat.

?Understanding where your employee engagement stands is a great place to begin.?Utilize all the tools in the toolbox including 1x1s, focus groups, pulse surveys, interviews across the employee journey, exit and stay interviews, turnover rate, employee absenteeism, text analytics, and small group discussions.?From a Qualtrics 2020 trends report, “Employees whose employer turns feedback into action “really well” are twice as engaged as those whose employer does not act on their feedback well. ?Having an engagement strategy that goes beyond the “Measurement Machine” doesn’t guarantee an engaged workforce but confirms an organization’s commitment to the Employee Value Proposition.?