Are you
really thinking of doing another employee engagement survey? Do you really want to take on this huge
annual project spend many months analyzing the data to spend another couple months planning what to
do with it in order to take action a year or more after on whatever was driving
those scores in the first place?
Maybe more
frequent data collection to uncover short term issues with a program designed
to address performance improvement issues on the spot would be a better use of
your time and money? These frequent
short term surveys, referred to as pulse surveys, offer
the ability to quickly and frequently measure feedback within entire groups. You can judge real time engagement and react
accordingly. Think of these as a way of gathering data that is current, rather
than on an annual basis. Reacting in a
timely manner can often make all the difference.
Traditionally,
employee engagement data has been reported in the aggregate when it is really a
metric about individuals. Why not design
the survey to specific needs and challenges and not ask everyone the same
question? This would lead to more targeted action, better supervision of
performance improvement issues, and the ability to use proven techniques of
employee recognition to drive results. The one area of concern in an individual
approach is that the data would no longer be anonymous, but frankly, there’s
not much about attitude and performance that is anonymous in any case. If you want to improve discretionary effort
you can look for the signals of them in the data that point directly to it.
The
safety industry for years has been using the psychological based principles of
behavior to improve safety performance.
This approach observes performance that can lead to accidents and
rewards individuals who perform those safe behaviors in the described
manner. This just in time approach to
changing performance can be done to improve performance on any number of the
issues that help to build employee engagement throughout the organization, not
just safety.
.
Instead of
another employee engagement survey, and considering the new technologies and
analytical tools we have, isn’t it time to experiment with new approaches to
determine what kinds of data might help with that?
For more information on
Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please
contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
