A little more conversation and a little more action please…
We often find that a lot of employee engagement initiatives don’t reap all the benefits promised because whilst the process of identifying what should be done works well, organisations then fail to effectively act on this information. Unfortunately, because of this the value of the initiative is called into question, not because the insights aren’t there, but because they are not acted upon.
The reasons for this are manifold – lack of understanding of how to interpret employee engagement reports, lack of skills or willingness in executing action, the list goes on. However, the biggest issue that we see is that organisations focus too much on the process of action-planning rather than looking at the outcome they are trying to achieve first.
To an extent the focus on post-survey activity will depend on the maturity of the organisation in understanding how to engage staff. As organisations become more au fait with measuring employee sentiment, more and more we are advocating organisations move way from ‘action-planning’ to “dialogue”.
Managers and leaders who are comfortable with taking data and having open conversations with their teams about what they plan to do as a result, have a much better chance of actually improving the way individuals perceive the experience of working for that organisation. Part of the success of these individuals is that they understand that even the best survey will only ever give you half of the information you need, but what it will do is identify where managers and leaders need to probe more with their teams. Exploring the data with their teams will give managers and leaders better insight into why people answered in a certain way, and how they can support to make improvements.
The best examples of good practice come where individuals see this information as feeding in to the normal rhythm of the business. Engagement is not a project that is run once or twice a year, it is a key part of a manager’s role and is considered in every individual and team interaction. The data from surveys must be treated the same as other management information i.e. it is used to help manage the people element of the organisation in the same way management accounts are used to manage the financial element, albeit the people data most likely is produced less frequently. In this way “engagement” becomes business as usual.
It is no coincidence that managers with better leadership skills – coaching, listening, inspiring and planning typically have more highly engaged people. They use these skills to hold better conversations with individuals and teams. Actions happen, but as a result of these conversations rather than because of an action planning process or action planning tool. These can be enablers, but are not a substitute for talking to people in the right way.
Another important element not to be understated is that where this works well is when actions are reviewed on a regular basis, this means that engagement is front-of-mind and doesn’t become something that is only addressed in the first few months after the results come out.
So, whilst process and tools are important, and definitely can be useful, the key is to focus on the outcome – engaging your people, not having the “best” action plan.
