why have an employee engagement survey?
TRANSCRIPT
Why you need an employee
engagement survey
To ensure your talent strategy
supports your business strategy
But first, a bit about me: Maria Jimena Cespedes
People and Data Geek
(a.k.a. Industrial-Organizational Psychologist working
in Talent Management in the High Tech industry)
In this deck, I share some of my lessons learned from
running an employee survey and leveraging insights to
guide talent strategy… Read through and you’ll find a
cheat sheet at the end.
Old management adage:
You can’t manage what you can’t measure
Old management adage:
You can’t manage what you can’t measure
However…
Finding the signal
There’s so much noise in the employee survey industry that
companies don’t know where to begin or finish
Finding the signal
There’s so much noise in the employee survey industry that
companies don’t know where to begin or finish
Finding the signal
There’s so much noise in the employee survey industry that
companies don’t know where to begin or finish STOP!
You need simple answers
You need simple answers
The problem:
• There are hundreds of different options
• Everyone wants to add questions
• Too much data causes analysis paralysis
You need to find the needle in the haystack…
but where do you start?
Let’s look at the landscape…
Companies are competing for a limited pool of
knowledge workers more fiercely than
ever
Companies are competing for a limited pool of
knowledge workers more fiercely than
ever
Retention incentives (evoke need) are short lasting and lead to mediocre
performance
Companies are competing for a limited pool of
knowledge workers more fiercely than
ever
Retention incentives (evoke need) are short lasting and lead to mediocre
performance
People perform their best when they love their jobs and feel connected to
their colleagues and company (inspire)
The edge is in building a company people
identify with and believe in
How do you make people love
your company
Purpose that inspires
Purpose that inspires
Walking the walk
Purpose that inspires
Walking the walk
Transforming careers
Your employee survey could be your best ally in attaining this
Your employee survey could be your best ally in attaining this
Here is why and how you do it:
Have you asked yourself:
Why should people work here? Do leaders communicate a vision that inspires?
Have you asked yourself:
Why should people work here? Do leaders communicate a vision that inspires?
Feeling inspired is correlated with
retention and engagement
So ask in your survey…
Do you feel inspired by leaders?
is also correlated with engagement:
WALK THE WALK
is also correlated with engagement:
WALK THE WALK
So, ask them…
Do we conduct business with integrity?
If you promise career opportunities at hiring, follow
through and invest in people
If you promise career opportunities at hiring, follow
through and invest in people
Ask if managers…
listen to employees’ goals and challenges often
tolerate mistakes and failures to promote innovation and learning
empower teams with opportunities
listen to employees’ goals and challenges often
tolerate mistakes and failures to promote innovation and learning
empower teams with opportunities
Back to the signal
There are many questions you could ask when designing an employee engagement survey, and benchmarking against your peers is important, but…
Back to the signal
There are many questions you could ask when designing an employee engagement survey, and benchmarking against your peers is important, but…
what works for some, does not work for all!
PERSONALIZE YOUR SURVEY
PERSONALIZE YOUR SURVEY
Include questions about…
your company’s culture and values –
do people feel connected?
your business strategy – what keeps
your execs awake at night?
what matters to your people –
are you delivering on the employee value
proposition?
Leverage
Leverage
Once you have identified the key things that matter
to your people and are measuring it –
draw the connection points to all talent practices
Collaborate with coworkers
in other disciplines
And empower executives and managers – be
transparent and share the insights
And empower executives and managers – be
transparent and share the insights
And do it
FAST!
Or your data will lose relevance
A culture driven with Purpose, Integrity and
Opportunity will attract, engage, grow, and
retain the best talent for your company
A culture driven with Purpose, Integrity and
Opportunity will attract, engage, grow, and
retain the best talent for your company
But growth and scale can be a threat
Leverage your employee engagement survey
to support your business strategy
and strengthen your culture
as you scale
(Cheat sheet next)
Please send questions or comments to
Maria Jimena Cespedes People and Data Geek
(Oversimplified)
Cheat Sheet
1. Make sure you ask about: purpose (inspiring leadership), integrity (walking the walk) and opportunity (advancing careers)
2. Design your survey to align with your culture, business strategy, and employee value proposition (EVP) – this may change over time
3. Make connection points to all talent practices, share the insights with colleagues and managers, and do it fast
4. Keep your survey under 50 questions, if possible
5. Not in this deck, but make sure to also dig deep in the data to answer strategic business questions (you may need different feedback tools and/or analyses for this)