Are Your Engagement Surveys Showing the Full Picture?

If you’ve ever run an engagement survey, what were you hoping to learn?

Engagement surveys have become the go-to tool for understanding employees’ experiences. They’re great at capturing broad trends in satisfaction and motivation—but they often miss the deeper issues affecting performance and wellbeing.

While surveys tell you how people feel, they don’t always reveal why.

For example:

• What’s driving stress levels in your teams?
• Why do some teams thrive while others struggle?
• Are work dynamics supporting success—or creating hidden obstacles?

The answers to these questions often lie beneath the surface.

A key piece that’s missing from engagement surveys is an honest look at how work and teams are structured and managed. When we assess these elements—things like workload, role clarity, team relationships, and workplace conditions—we uncover the real stressors. The ones that influence everything from engagement to retention.

Consider these workplace realities:

• Do people have clear roles, or is ambiguity creating unnecessary stress?
• Is workload realistic, or are employees feeling stretched too thin?
• Are team dynamics fostering collaboration or leading to friction?
• Does the work environment make it easier to focus—or harder?

These aren’t small frustrations. They’re the underlying factors that contribute to burnout, disengagement, and turnover.

And addressing them isn’t just best practice—it’s becoming essential.

Many organisations are now required to assess workplace stressors (like in the UK, Australia, and Canada), and global standards such as ISO 45003 highlight the importance of managing psychosocial risks. This isn’t just about compliance—it’s about creating workplaces where people thrive.

So, how can we move beyond engagement surveys?

Understanding how employees feel is only part of the picture. To create real change, we need to assess why they feel that way—by looking at the underlying team and work dynamics.

A structured approach to assessing team dynamics helps identify and address the full spectrum of work stressors

While workplace stressors can seem unpredictable, they generally fall into three key areas:

1. Work Design, Organisation & Management – Are roles clear, workloads balanced, and processes effective? Or are inefficiencies creating unnecessary stress?
2. Social & Team Dynamics – Do relationships foster collaboration and trust, or are there hidden tensions impacting performance?
3. Work Environment – Is the physical and digital workspace enabling focus and wellbeing, or making work harder than it needs to be?

By looking deeper into these areas, organisations move from measuring engagement to fixing what drives disengagement. This approach allows leaders to proactively address stressors before they lead to burnout, turnover, or declining performance.

So instead of relying on engagement surveys alone, ask:

? What’s getting in the way of people doing their best work?

? Where are the friction points in how work is structured or managed?

? Are team relationships helping—or hindering—collaboration?

Making these insights visible is the first step toward creating a work environment where people can thrive.

Next week, I'll be sharing our best methods and tips for measuring your disengagement drivers, including dynamic mapping, audits and assessment styles.

To your success and wellbeing,

César

PS. Ready to go deeper than engagement scores? Let’s assess your team’s dynamics and design a roadmap for real change. Book a free consultation to get started.

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