Editorial
Many employers are searching for exciting, innovative ways to engage, connect with and inspire or re-ignite their employees. In today’s ever-changing workplace, we’re looking everywhere for a blueprint, but there’s a catch: Without the proper employee data, we could be trying to solve the wrong problems or missing the right opportunities to increase performance, develop a sound strategy and build a strong framework that moves the needle.
So why take the time and effort to capture data, thoughts and “feedback gifts” from your employees?
Accurate Data Opens the Door to Innovation
By harnessing the power of data, organizations are able to gain the insights needed to identify and address crucial aspects of the business, like the number of employees who are company promoters, overall tool satisfaction, and the effectiveness of resources that help drive engagement and performance.
Organizations can transform, become agile, grow and even innovate the space they do business in when they collect the right information to base strategies on. This allows them to pull up, inspire and motivate employees to execute with zeal and help the organization show up differently in the communities they do business in. A recent Gallup study stated, “To achieve organic growth and persevere through disruption, organizations need more than sufficient work — they need exceptional performance. And they get it by engaging their employees.” Data will help you pinpoint where to focus.
Related Article: Level Up Your Listening: Act on Employee Feedback
Investing in programs, tools and technology that allow you to tap into employees’ valuable feedback and actionable ideas can also fuel company-wide innovation that can in turn transform products and services for customers and, more importantly, how employees spend their time getting there. These ideas lead to new key learnings, upskilling and career opportunities — other important areas our workforce looks for in a workplace experience.
What Metrics Should You Capture?
The answer here is a bit more nuanced: The data most beneficial to your organization depends on your industry and the needs of your specific workforce. Different functional areas within a given industry are also driven by different needs. Healthcare organizations or financial institutions, for example, serve their customers differently. A financial firm may be more flexible than a medical office in how it allows work to be done or delivered by the employees.
Regardless of industry, figuring out how your employees feel about your organization is paramount. Do they enjoy coming to work? Would they encourage friends or colleagues to work at or do business with the organization? These are crucial data points to uncover as they will help you formulate your engagement strategy, including planning your budget and calendar of events or initiatives for future programs for the year and beyond.
One way to determine what questions to ask is to look at a job analysis for the roles that drive your business objectives. What resources, tools and development do workers need to get the job done? You can also look at your leadership skill levels and examine if you have the right leaders in place to drive the business. It is important to examine hiring trends, turnover and functional department goals. All of these will frame and shape the types of categories for questions you will want to collect data on.
Identifying Advocates and Addressing Turnover
Honest employee feedback plays a crucial role in the success of your data collection efforts as it can help create the “recipe” for an engaged employee within the organization. This feedback can further inform how organizations meet the needs or pain points of their existing workforce, onboard new hires and determine what specific benefits they offer, among many other factors. A high-quality employee engagement program identifies these pain points in the employee lifecycle well in advance, empowering organization leaders to make proactive positive changes before any negative disruption comes to fruition.
Related Article: Voice of the Employee Programs Go Nowhere Without Trust
So how do you get in front of turnover, and how do you keep your employees productive and feeling valued?
Managers should start by making time to have continual, meaningful one-on-ones with each of their direct reports. Taking the necessary steps to understand your employees –– what drives them and/or what’s limiting them –– is when you’re more likely to solve problems and keep employees longer. These could also be considered stay conversations. Throughout the lifecycle, if you lead with transparency and honesty by talking about how you collect feedback and further demonstrate actions in response to that feedback, then you deliver a powerful message to the employee that inspires and motivates them to stick with the company.
Looking Beyond the Survey
Putting together a custom survey for your organization is a great way to ensure you’re collecting real-time data about your employees’ perspective. But while a survey is a great step, it cannot be the finish line or the only tool you use.
The goal of a survey is not to jump into action immediately; it’s to engage in active listening and sharing. As you gather data and make a strategy so that each action you take is methodical and well thought out, it’s a good idea to bring teams along. While employee engagement programs should be focused on your business goals, these programs are about long-term success, as well as understanding how your business makes people feel. The ideation step for a solution should be inclusive. Bring teams together and share results. Get their ideas and commitment for go-forward steps. Foster accountability and coach shared responsibility culture to improve and thrive. Formalize the strategy, communicate the plan, and keep it alive until the next round with frequent check-in and messaging.
Related Article: Is Your Voice of Employee Program Fit for the Remote Workforce?
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The Messaging Is in the Action
When you think about employee engagement pieces that make the whole experience, you should also be thinking about your message. It’s not solely about what initiatives you extend to employees; it’s about the messaging around your processes and programs or investment in these initiatives for your employees. Where and how do these exist and benefit the employees? More importantly, how do these initiatives respond to the needs that they shared with you? Your actions should be intentional and your messaging should tie into the specific need you’re addressing at every opportunity possible. Employees want to see movement after giving you the “gift” of feedback and their time to the organization.
When employees experience progress and know where you are in the journey of your strategy, it sends a powerful message that you respect them, trust them and value their contributions. The data you receive should translate smoothly into actionable items your employees can see, feel and experience — not just hear about.
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