[T]here is enormous pressure on individual managers to drive engagement from the bottom-up, as opposed to it being a top-down responsibility. “It forces managers to be something they’re not, which is focus-group specialists,” he says.
Part of the reason employee engagement isn’t seen as the responsibility of senior managers is that it exists in a vacuum, and isn’t seen to give insight or guidance into specific business strategies.
And lastly, employee engagement surveys are annoying at best and useless at worst. They take a census approach – posing the same questions to everyone – and the data takes months to analyse. via leadingcompany.smartcompany.com.au
Funny, huh?Funny as in You gotta be kidding me.
1. Senior managers are exempt from any responsibility, any connection, with employees - personally or professionally.
2. The 'data' takes months to analyse. Really? Obviously, it's not that important.
3. The managers are tasked for the most important challenge with no prior training.
4. No one's engaging. The senior managers are disengaged. The managers are fumbling in the dark, frantically.
5. The employees know all this. They know Senior Managers have zero interest in them or their survey replies. Their manager isn't inept, but he's made to look inept by the lack of support and training from senior managers. The data's made meaningless so for each subsequent survey the employees offer meaningless answers.
We can't solve all these issues in a post. But I can at least share one useful bit of information.
I'm a big fan of Net Promoter Score and its 3 question survey.There's been some talk that it can be used with employees. Why not? Employees are every company's first and most important customers. Without employees buying your brand's promise and their role in delivering it...you have no brand.
The questions are:
How likely would you be to recommending us to your friends and colleagues? [Newsflash to some executives: your employees already have that conversation. You're just not included.]
On a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being very unlikely and 10 being very likely, how would you rate your likelihood to recommend us?
For those who answer 0 - 5, you ask: How can change that?
For who who answer 8 - 10, you ask: What did we do to deserve that score?
The answers are in the employee's words. They'll describe specifics, clearly and passionately, so much of both you can act on them immediately, either continuing what you're doing or targeting the corrective action, immediately.
They also point out who deserves recognition.
You can start there. Build a little momentum, based on data and conversation, generating some tangible results to build...engagement.
What have you got to lose?
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