In today’s fast paced and ever so changing business world, time & attention of the top leadership team, including the CEOs & the CFOs, are precious. The top leaders constantly prioritize, and focus their attention on issues which are most critical for their organization. Quite often, employee engagement fails to find a place in this list of ‘critical to-dos’.
#1 Employee Engagement is HR’s job
This is one of the most prevalent, and unfortunate myths that surround employee engagement. This is largely because employee engagement sounds like one of those ‘warm’ & ‘fuzzy’ people related words, with no visible business impact, that HR is most equipped to handle. Business leaders instead, focus their attention on the more ‘data-driven’ issues, that drive business.
There are numerous studies which indicate a clear relationship between employee engagement, and business critical areas of productivity, customer satisfaction, innovation & attrition. One such study conducted by the University of Warwick suggests that engaged employees are 12% more productive than their disengaged peers. Given the acute competition in today’s market, having a workforce which is 12% more efficient than the norm can very likely offer any organization a marked edge over its competition. Hence, employee engagement is a critical business requirement, which needs to be given its due importance in the boardroom, and not just in the HR corner.
#2 Employee engagement surveys are an annual event.
Many organizations understand the importance that employee engagement surveys play in driving employee engagement, and thus, business results. However, many of them harbor the misconception that checking the pulse of their employees needs to be an annual event. While an elaborate census survey can be run annually to avoid survey fatigue, organizations should also invest in shorter & more frequent pulse surveys. These surveys can be rolled out periodically to gauge employee feedback on specific areas, like any recent policy change.
These pulse surveys serve two important purposes. Firstly, organizations receive employee opinion on issues while they are still relevant, and not months later. For instance, if there’s a change in the leave policy, it’s a good idea to learn what the employees think about it then, rather than a year later by when few have quit the company after being unhappy with the revised policy.
Secondly, the results of these mini surveys can add richness to the data collected through annual employee engagement surveys. As is the case with any analysis, the more data there is to play with, the more accurate & specific the analysis gets.
With platforms like IBM Employee Voice, which can roll out surveys in a matter of minutes, there’s no reason why organizations should stick only to annual surveys, and not explore the usefulness of pulse surveys as well.
#3 Compensation & benefits are the most important drivers of engagement
Several organizations believe that adequately compensating employees and offering them various benefits is enough to keep them engaged. However, the reality is quite different. Research suggests that about 44% employees use compensation as the yardstick to choose between jobs. However, compensation ceases to play a critical role once it crosses a certain threshold, and employees look at other factors. The relationship between compensation & employee engagement for employees still with the organization is even more dismal. Research conducted by CLC Human Resources found that compensation features towards the bottom of a list of 38 specific tactics for driving engagement. Compensation is a hygiene factor, which needs to be adequate to prevent disengagement. However, it is quite inept at actually driving engagement.
