Almost all organizations do employee engagement/ satisfaction studies. Some design it internally and some outsource it to third party vendors. The objective is of course to know how engaged and satisfied your workforce is on a variety of parameters and take appropriate actions based on their feedback.  I’ve been part of enough studies now to know that most employers love to do these studies but struggle with what to do with them.

The challenge then is not really doing these studies, but going beyond the results and actioning on them. Without the required action implementation the relevance of such studies die. Then they are only seen as numbers to be looked upon once a year and for the mgt and HR to include in their annual reports. 

How does one then ensure these studies are effective in their action and kept alive during the year? Here are some ideas that I feel could help organizations.   

1)      Ensure action implementation is a top recall item for all teams. In most Organsiation, there is a general lull that settles in after the first flurry of activity when results are declared. The challenge is to ensure that action implementation and reviews happen in a cyclic manner throughout the year.  Having a process that ensures managers need to look at Team scores and engagement issues once a quarter can help. We have designed a process wherein Managers/Team Leaders get rated on the Engagement Action plans and the status of their implementation atleast once a quarter. This kind of a focus will ensure action of scores is a top recall item for all employees.

2)      Creating a live reference point for action as and when needed.  A huge challenge that one usually faces is that scores for studies are generated usually once a year. When managers are asked to keep going back to that score and identify plans they usually come back with feedback that old scores are usually not a good reference point. To counter this, one can make a simple tool that will enable managers to do a dip stick check on engagement levels of their team as and when they want, as often as they want. We have made a local poll tool which enables managers to activate it, send it to his/her team members, get their feedback on key parameters of engagement and generate an anonymous report all on his own. This allows for a manager to have a live reference point for action as and when he needs. He can action plan based on the feedback, implement plans and then do a dip stick again to see how his efforts are translating into positive movement in engagement levels. It is a great way to keep the momentum up through the year. It keeps up their enthusiasm and Managers tend to keep doing something if they can see some tangible numbers showing the effect of their efforts. Our teams have found this to be an extremely useful tool.

3)       Need to create activity and focus around Engagement throughout the year: It is very important for employees and Managers to see that the Organsiation is also making effort throughout the year to ensure improved engagement scores. Giving Organizational action updates, sharing best practices from teams who are doing well, sharing engagement related literature, having awards around team engagement and best managers are some ways we can keep the focus on this activity throughout the year