CONNECTIONS An Edelman perspective on making meaningful employee connections that deepen engagement, build trust and accelerate business performance
AUGUST 2015
THE 2015 STATE OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT By Dr. Andy Brown, Executive Director, London, and Christopher Hannegan, Executive Vice President, Chicago It’s hard to deny that engaged employees are a key competitive differentiator. Creating deeper connections with employees, across organizations and with the wider world are important for business success. We recently conducted two studies to explore what Internal Communications and Human Resources teams are actually doing to measure engagement and convert it into competitive advantage. What’s working and what isn’t? And how can we improve? Here are five key findings:
1) ENGAGEMENT IS STILL JUST TOO “HR”
We think there are a couple factors in play here:
We asked what organizations defined as engagement and what were they measuring as a result. The data shows one simple thing: the vast majority of employee engagement surveys rely on an out-dated, oldfashioned, pure-play “HR version” of engagement.
Engagement survey models are too generic. Most surveys put forth a definition of engagement that suits the survey provider and helps them build their own benchmarking database; few are tailored for each company. Often, these off-the-shelf surveys ask questions that are too easy to answer positively. The solution? Demand a bespoke definition of engagement and a survey to reflect that.
Almost 50% of all organizations fail to measure employees’ engagement with the customer or the brand. This highlights a fundamental question: what do you want to engage your people with? If it’s just with you as an employer, the “great place to work” approach is fine. But if you want your workforce to engage with your customers and your brand, today’s common approaches fall very short. Our view? Engagement is really about three things. Are your people engaged with… …you as an employer? …serving your customers and delivering your brand? …delivering your business strategy?
2) ENGAGEMENT IS HUGELY OVER-REPORTED Half of our respondents indicated their “engagement score” was above 70% in recent surveys. Based on all we hear about the current engagement deficit, this raises a very uncomfortable question: are the bulk of these surveys painting an inaccurate picture?
The measures are too easy. We’ve all seen it: the standard five-point scale with survey reports focused on the “percentage positive” (agrees and strongly agrees). But all of our own engagement research shows that it’s the “top box” people who act differently – to each other as colleagues and, more importantly, toward customers. Organizations need to stop resting on the easy laurels of “percent positive” and instead track top-box scores, thus focusing on those who are truly engaged. One solution? Make your engagement metrics tougher and more discerning. One such measure is called full engagement. This isn’t a nice, cozy average of your five main engagement questions that provides a pleasing (but misleading) 70% engaged score. It takes a much tougher and meaningful approach. Full engagement looks at how many of your people (in an organization, a division or a team) score in the top box on ALL of your engagement model questions.
© 2015 Edelman