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A Process Model for Measuring and Improving Employee Engagement
Figure 7.1 depicts an employee-engagement process model with five steps: (1) plan the engagement survey, (2) conduct the survey, (3) report and analyze the results, (4) take action on the results to maintain strengths and improve on weaknesses, and (5) sustain improved engagement over time, including by readministering the survey. The model is shown as a circle because the process is continuous. Communication is at the center of the model—the core—because it is an essential ingredient of every aspect of the engagement strategy and is therefore critical to both short-and long-term success. Each step in the model is briefly summarized in this chapter and then described in more detail in Chapters 8–11.
It is important to emphasize that this is a process model. That is, the model outlines steps a public-sector organization, jurisdiction, or agency should take to assess engagement and act on the results. The model does not specify what actions to take—these are determined by analysis of engagement survey results and other supplemental data. These results and data should drive decisions on the actions the jurisdiction or agency should take to maintain areas of strength and improve areas of weakness.
Figure 7.1. Employee-engagement process model.
This five-step process model may appear simplistic. However, done right, implementing the engagement process model can produce powerful results in the form of improved employee and organization performance. As Herb Kelleher, the founder and former CEO of Southwest Airlines, has described the Southwest focus on talent, “The concept is simple, but the execution takes a lot of work and a lot of attention.”1
STEP 1: PLAN
Advance planning is critically important not only for the employee-engagement survey itself but also for subsequent steps. As discussed in Chapter 8, planning includes deciding whether to survey, whom to survey, what questions to ask (e.g., develop a survey or use an existing survey), and when and how to administer the survey. The organization should select or develop a survey that is valid; in other words, the survey questions should accurately assess the level of employee engagement. Planning should also include decisions about how survey results will be analyzed and reported. This includes deciding what format the survey data will be reported in, whether an overall index of engagement will be computed, whether agency results can be benchmarked against comparable organizations, what the units of analysis will be (e.g., overall organization or agency, individual work units, specific managers, demographic groups), how the results will be reported, and who will receive the data.
Planning should also include deciding on the strategy and process for acting on the survey data, often by forming action teams of a cross-section of employees. The overall plan should include the long-term engagement strategy, including the schedule for regularly conducting follow-up surveys.
STEP 2: CONDUCT THE ENGAGEMENT SURVEY
The organization can develop the engagement survey itself or administer one of the many available surveys. Similarly, the agency can administer the survey by itself or hire an outside contractor to conduct it. While most agencies will conduct the survey online, it may also be necessary to provide a hard-copy option for employees who can’t, or won’t, be able to complete it online. Maximizing response rates means ensuring that individual employee survey responses will be held in confidence (e.g., not seen by anyone in the organization) and also following up to remind employees to complete the survey.
STEP 3: REPORT AND ANALYZE THE RESULTS
There are a wide variety of ways to report on and analyze the survey results. One important aspect to analyze is the survey response rate—the percentage of employees who complete the survey.
Many surveys can also generate an engagement index—a composite score that summarizes the overall level of engagement across the entire organization. Analysis should also include reporting and reviewing the results question by question to identify engagement areas of strength that should be maintained, as well as areas the agency needs to improve. This can be done for the organization overall, as well as by breaking down the survey results into smaller components such as work units and locations, individual managers, and demographic groups.
Analyzing survey results can also include more detailed and sophisticated analytics, such as comparing agency results against similar results from outside organizations (benchmarking), identifying the “drivers” of engagement (i.e., the items that statistical analysis reveals are most influential in determining the engagement levels of employees), and comparing the responses of managers/supervisors to the responses of frontline staff to identify any disconnects.
In addition to the quantitative survey results, most engagement surveys also allow respondents to provide narrative responses. Through these narratives, employees can expand on and explain their survey responses and offer additional insights. Analyzing the narrative comments can help the agency identify the root causes of engagement issues revealed by the survey.
STEP 4: TAKE ACTION
Surveying itself won’t automatically improve the level of employee engagement or workplace conditions. Real change requires taking action on the data. In fact, surveying and then not taking action on the results can frustrate employees and actually decrease the level of engagement.
Many agencies have responded to engagement data by forming action teams that include employees from across the organization. These team members make a commitment to analyzing the survey data, developing recommendations to act on the data, and then putting together detailed action plans to implement approved recommendations.
The action team should develop a plan of action that includes maintaining strengths and improving on weaknesses. The plan should also identify who is responsible for specific actions and include milestones to assess progress. The team may also decide to collect additional information, often through focus groups, to add context to the survey data and help explore and identify root causes.
It’s unlikely that any organization can respond to every issue an employee survey (and any additional data collected) reveals. Therefore, the organization (through the action team) needs to make decisions about priorities, including identifying short-term actions as well as longer-term solutions.
STEP 5: SUSTAIN ENGAGEMENT
A key aspect of sustaining engagement is regularly measuring it through surveys. That’s the only sure way to really know if employees are engaged. Periodic surveying makes the entire organization—including leaders, managers, and supervisors—accountable for employee engagement. Agencies that conduct engagement surveys typically do them on a regularly scheduled basis (e.g., every one, two, or three years). Surveying less frequently can kill any momentum to improve engagement.
Sustaining engagement also requires continued support by leaders, managers, and supervisors. It also means that these leaders need to be held accountable for maintaining and/or improving engagement.
Agencies that have made the commitment to improving engagement also should identify performance metrics that make sense for their mission, strategy, and culture. Then, over time, the organization should track not only its level of employee engagement but also whether metrics important to the agency are trending in the right direction.
COMMUNICATE
This is at the center of the model because communication should be a unifying force in the journey to improved employee engagement. Agencies must communicate frequently and candidly, before, during, and after the survey process, including throughout action planning and implementation.
The engagement survey model is not a one-size-fits-all approach. The steps in the model are intentionally broad to allow individual public-sector organizations to tailor it to their needs. Each jurisdiction and agency needs to adapt the model to its own mission, values, strategy, culture, and capabilities before adopting it.