Why It's Not A Case of Re-Inventing The Wheel For Employee Engagement
Last week, I presented at the HR & Workforce Analytics Innovation Summit on how to engage with your employees in the right way using the tools and systems that are already out there. Excitingly for me, it garnered a lot of interest, as employee engagement has begun to rightfully draw attention from businesses all over the world.
We were asked by a number of attendees for a summary of the presentation, so here it is! I hope you enjoy it, and if you want to chat further, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me: tony@peakon.com
It’s all in the basics
When looking at businesses that are engaging with employees in the right way, it makes sense to look at multi-billion dollar companies with an abundance of employees and easily-accessible data to assess. There’s perhaps no better example of a company that does things differently with their employees than Google.
They recently ran a year-long data mining survey, titled Project Oxygen, that aimed to identify what makes a successful manager, and ultimately, a successful employee engagement strategy. By raking through a huge amount of data such as performance appraisals, surveys from employees and nominations for managers for top awards, Google hoped to generate interesting results on what makes a good manager, and how to engage with employees on a deeper level.
Project Oxygen uncovered such results, which you can see below, as “empower; don’t micromanage”, “be a good communicator and listen to your team” and “have a clear vision and strategy”. However these observations that Google ‘discovered’ are nothing new, and don’t present any ground-breaking insights that businesses can implement. Of course, many of the points are valid and should be included in any business, but they aren’t revelatory.
The outcome of this is that over time, employees suffer from survey fatigue resulting in rapidly declining response rates across all surveys. What we have learnt at Peakon is that by following a consistent frequency of listening, with senior leaders in an organisation being seen to communicate and act on employee’s feedback that exceptionally high response rates can be achieved. However, it is important to ensure leaders have something of value to communicate and act on that is specific to their team. If surveys are run multiple times without this process of action, then employees quickly lose faith that is worth their time responding to future surveys.
Using the wheel
It doesn’t need to be complicated. Keep it simple and look to adopt a continuous approach. This will ensure you have an effective feedback system in place that ensures everyone, from the bottom-up, is part of an open dialogue on the things that matter most to them. Feedback systems aren’t just for criticisms or concerns, they’re a brilliant chance for employees to discuss what they love about the business, and what works. Such a cyclical process of providing feedback, and acting on that feedback, means that the wheel can keep on turning.
Making your employees your most important asset
In short, we’ve found that making your employees your priority and genuinely engaging with them can have huge results for your company. Studies have shown that teams who have engaged employees have 50% less regrettable churn, are twenty times more likely to bring creative ideas to work, and will also see a 2.5x increase in customer loyalty. Making your employees your brand not only boosts your brand’s image, but it also boosts the way in which customers interact with you too.
Utilise the tools that are already on the market, and mimic companies that are leading the way like Google. Get the fundamentals right, do your research, and understand the difference between engagement and culture.
In the same breath, avoid the mistakes that companies like Uber have made. Stick to the values that your company has created, and ensure that action is taken against anyone who doesn’t adhere to them. Building a safe space for employees can completely change how successful your business is.
Build on these examples and apply them to your own specific business. Each team and each company is different, so work on what makes your company successful. What drives your employees? What do they need from their management team to be at the top of their game?
Use the tools that are already existent on the market to help you achieve these aims. Things like our employee engagement tool, or a benefits tool like Perkbox or an updated Intranet. Whatever it is, make sure that you understand a tool, why you’re using it, and how you’ll use it to measure progress.
Finally, understand that employee engagement is a marathon, not a sprint. You can never completely master it, but the efforts that you put in now, and from here on in, will have you well placed against competitors, and will ensure that the results of your business will dramatically increase.