Author: Dwight Lacey
You know an idea or business construct has become mainstream when you get detractors taking pot shots at it.In recent months, I have come across several criticisms of employee engagement surveys. In this post, I will address those criticisms, giving you the insight you need to judge for yourself whether employee engagement is valid.
7 COMMON OBJECTIONS TO EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
1. Causation Is Not Established for Employee Engagement, Only Correlation
This is an interesting argument that deserves a response.
There are many areas in our lives where we depend on correlation without being able to prove cause and effect.
As a purely academic exercise, it is interesting to speculate about causation and the ‘lack of proof’ with employee engagement. However, as a former CEO I would suggest that if you take a certain action and thereby get a predictable result, the practical application is what really matters. The savvy business-person is less concerned about the academic argument and more with the tangible outcome of the action – especially if it helps gain an advantage over competitors.
Employee engagement is proven to be positively correlated with lower turnover, fewer workplace accidents, higher productivity, and so on.
In some rare cases (see The Conference Board’s review of Employee Engagement), outliers do occur. Some highly engaged firms do have lower profitability than their peer group. Some disengaged companies do outperform their peers. However, they are outliers.
So in my world, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is likely a duck. Employee engagement pays on the bottom line. If you aren't measuring engagement or taking action to engage your employees, you are ignoring a simple, cost-effective way to outrun your competitors. 2. Employee Engagement Surveys Can Become a "Gaming" Opportunity within Companies
I do not know of a single type of profile tool, personality assessment tool, or survey that (if the culture is a bad culture) cannot be "gamed". I have watched this in action with 360 reviews, including tools like DISC, Myers Briggs, and so on.
In reality, if you are doing a survey only to get the numbers at the end of the exercise, and you are not putting in place corrective actions, training, and processes to make your company the best place to work, you will not be successful.
It’s like what Winston Churchill said about democracy. "Democracy is fundamentally flawed, I just don't know of a better alternative.”
3. Issues with Linking Employee Engagement to Compensation
Like most tools designed to create a high performance culture, the moment when you link them to a person's bonus, merit pay, or stock options, you are opening your company up to a potential issue. Evidence suggests that compensation is not linked to employee engagement.
These tools are best used to improve processes and to help leaders set personal development goals. I highly recommend keeping the employee engagement score out of compensation discussions. We have too many examples of compensation elements leading to improper results and potential abuses.
4. Employee Engagement Surveys Become a Useless Tool after 4 or 5 Years
This has the potential to happen, unless the company takes a very serious approach to building an engaged culture AND to doing random sample tracking between surveys.
If you are not taking action on the surveys, they can become a useless tool. Share the results with employees. Include them in the solution. Take action on what you find out! Otherwise, why are you doing a survey?
If you use an employee engagement survey properly, you avoid the risk of it becoming a stale tool in the performance management process.
5. Employee Engagement Actions Are Taking Too Long to Roll Out after the Survey
I truly believe you need to take the time to roll out the results – but focus on the things that will have the biggest impact. The key is having a sense of urgency about putting the right corrective actions in place within a reasonable time frame.
You also need to budget time for consulting with employees about the issues and actions needed, prior to implementation.
Don’t expect everything right now, and don’t try to do too much all at once.
6. Hooked on a Rating
I see many comments about companies being ‘hooked’ on being a “Top 50 Employer”, or a “Great Place to Work”.
While these are nice goals to have, the key is to implement a survey that truly works for your organization. You need a survey provider that will work with your organization to get results.
A ranking is only as good as the companies you are being compared to. What is important is looking at what will make you a winner in your market (more on this in the next point).
7. Employee Engagement Surveys Don’t Provide External Benchmarking
Many suppliers and companies want to have external benchmarking as part of the process.
I have spoken to many people who would disagree with this idea. Like them, I believe that the key is to find out where you are, take action to get better, and then measure again to determine your own progress.
If I go to my doctor and get a physical, do I want to be compared to the healthiest person in the world or do I want to know what I need to do to improve my health.
WHY YOU SHOULD ENGAGE YOUR EMPLOYEES Measuring engagement is the first step to recognizing that the biggest asset you have are your people.
When I look at an SG&A in a company’s income statement, it is extremely rare to see the cost of salaries and benefits as less than 40% of all non-product expenses (e.g. raw materials in manufacturing, cost of goods sold in retail, etc.).
Looking at this cost as a lease for an asset would put these costs in perspective. Our expectation when hiring a person is that we will have them with us for many years. Any reasonable cap rate on that dollar amount would show them to be the single largest asset the company has.
Employee engagement is not a panacea, but I would suggest to readers that it may be the most important strategic move you can make.
Why? Because in my experience, most companies are only paying lip service to the process. They measure to satisfy the Board of Directors; they measure because HR says it is the right thing to do.
As a former CEO, I want competitors like that! As I work to make my company the best place to work, I will drive out the people who don't buy in to our vision and values, and I will attract the best people in the industry. While I’m doing that, the "bad apples" will find work with my competitors.
Just like great sports teams, a strategy is useless without a committed team to execute on that strategy.
What’s your take on employee engagement?
Click Here for the latest articles by the Author.