I am sticking to the theme of engagement this week, as I think it is very important for all Employers to put this at the top of their people agenda right now. I have had another week of talking to clients/business leaders and there is a common underlying theme cropping up – resourcing issues!
Organisations are losing talent left, right and centre at the moment. Each industry sector is suffering in slightly different ways and for various reasons. It is ruthless out there – we have competitors poaching our people for inflated salaries we cannot match; increasing demands from employees (particularly at graduate level) for flexibility in working arrangements and just a general re-assessment for some of their life and needs.
I haven’t got a magic wand for this, but I can provide some suggestions on ways in which you can further engage and check the pulse of your business. I am a huge fan of engagement surveys…..and no I don’t just mean a tick box exercise that you complete once a year. This needs to be more than just a survey and part of your overall Employee Engagement strategy. A survey is the entry point to engagement, which involves being part of something and committing to a journey of insight and action. It will help you acknowledge where you, your team and your organisation excel and where meaningful change can be made.
I have supported a lot of clients to complete external surveys such as Best Companies and receive well deserved accreditation. This is always my recommended goal for the future, to complete an external survey that is best suited as a benchmarking exercise for your business. However, before you embark on this journey, you may want to complete some internal surveys and start to make some positive changes. This does not need to be long- winded, it can be what many organisations call a ‘pulse’ survey. It is completed on a quarterly or 6 monthly basis and asks the same consistent questions that help you to assess your current engagement levels. It needs to be a quick survey that employees take 5-10 mins to complete.
If you keep your questions the same, then you can measure any change and celebrate the success. I would suggest that you analyse this data and take action. Many of my clients have set up Engagement committees to do this and work through some of the feedback. Realistically, we are not able to take on board all the suggestions…… and some can be quite frankly ridiculous, but you will see common themes through the feedback.
The key to all of this is communication. If you can make the change…. if you can’t…… if you will park for now but review in the future…. communicate it to your people! Employees get really fed up when they make the effort to complete a survey, to only find that nothing is ever done with the results.
It takes little effort to get this up and running and the benefits can be massive, so take action and check the pulse of your business.