Amanda Connelly SVP, Leadership Development and Certified Executive Coach with CMP, a minority-women-owned firm.
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For HR leaders trying to stay abreast of constant change in employee engagement, where employee satisfaction and productivity are paramount, engagement surveys often serve as an invaluable tool for defining success. They serve as strategic compasses that guide businesses toward understanding their workforce's sentiments, needs and aspirations. Engaged employees are more likely to feel committed to their organization, reducing turnover rates and associated costs. As a result, engagement surveys—and intentional follow-ups—help cultivate a culture of collaboration, innovation and continuous improvement.
In my efforts to try many different forms of surveying and analysis, I've found that it's incredibly valuable to emphasize positive psychology. Here’s how to build its principles into any survey.
Employee Sentiment
Engagement surveys are a platform for employees to voice their opinions, concerns and suggestions anonymously. This anonymity encourages candid feedback, enabling organizations to gain genuine insights into their workforce. They can then identify areas of strength and areas needing improvement, which facilitates informed decision-making when it comes to workplace policies and culture.
The reality of trying to gather open comments is that leaders may prioritize some comments over others, leaving the potential to miss the bigger thematic calls for action. Having an engagement survey that includes sentiment analysis provides the opportunity to view employees' exact feedback while also getting a snapshot of common themes. This allows employers to leverage workforce strengths and set priorities for the organization as a whole.
Strong Relationships And Connection
Positive psychology emphasizes the importance of relationships and social connections for supporting one's well-being. With the results from engagement surveys, organizations can determine ways to enhance trust, collaboration and a sense of belonging among employees.
Focus groups should also be encouraged to highlight positive feedback to make those aspects of the workplace culture sustainable. This helps send a message to employees that their opinions are valued and will be leveraged to ensure alignment with organizational goals. Listening to and championing the whole story is the true morale booster.
Flow And Job Satisfaction
Engagement surveys that incorporate positive psychology tenets can help identify factors that contribute to or hinder employees' experience of flow—a state of deep immersion and enjoyment in one's work. By understanding what drives job satisfaction, organizations can create environments conducive to experiencing more meaningful, fulfilling work. This will require being transparent with the results, openly recognizing what steps are within everyone’s control to influence flow and discussing how to cultivate a sense of purpose.
Decision-Making That Considers Well-Being
Results from engagement surveys provide organizations with valuable data to identify trends, patterns and correlations that can inform HR policies, organizational strategies and cultural initiatives. This data-driven approach allows for informed decision-making that's grounded in the realities of their workforce and its well-being.
Employee well-being may seem ethereal to some leaders, making it difficult for them to view it as a quantifiable metric. However, engagement surveys can address this issue by including employee net promoter scores (eNPS). Derived from the net promotor score that's often included in customer satisfaction surveys, the eNPS is a metric to help interpret employee loyalty and satisfaction. It analyzes the data from an organization's detractors, passives and promoters, which is a key piece to understanding an employee’s intent to stay and assist in attracting others into the organization. With eNPS metrics, organizations gain valuable insight into how they can leverage or focus on well-being and retention purposes.
In conclusion, by using a well-designed, positive psychology-infused engagement survey to fuel action planning, organizations can combine the benefits of data with a full picture of their workforce's perspective. This can ensure success in creating an organizational culture that will thrive in this increasingly competitive environment.
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