Employee engagement surveys are a great way to get a pulse on how connected employees feel to your company. They can help identify your company’s top drivers of employee engagement and reveal the areas that are contributing to disengagement, burnout, and turnover.
Successfully creating and sending out an employee engagement survey is quite an accomplishment, but it’s only the beginning. After it’s complete, there are a few things you can do to make the most of your employee engagement survey.
1. Interpret the results
The results are in, and now it’s time to make sense of the raw data and employee responses. It’s important to look at both the overall scores and the individual responses to identify patterns and areas that need improvement. For example, if a large percentage of employees are dissatisfied with a particular aspect of their job, such as their workload or communication with management, this is an indication that changes need to be made in that area.
You should also break down the data by various demographics such as teams, departments, functions, tenure, or locations. This will help you better understand the areas you need to focus on and where you should be targeting your plans.
It’s also important to compare the results to industry benchmarks and to previous survey results to see if engagement levels have improved or worsened over time. Overall, interpreting the results of an employee engagement survey requires a thorough and holistic understanding of the data in order to identify key areas for improvement and make meaningful changes that will increase employee engagement and satisfaction.
2. Align with senior leadership
An engagement survey can highlight some hard truths about an organization. Maybe you haven’t been valuing the factors highly engaged employees care about such as autonomy, flexibility, and development opportunities. Perhaps your organization thought you offered great benefits or had strong diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, but it turns out you weren’t quite hitting the mark. To retain and attract new talent today, it’s critical to be clear about what your employees value. This means getting on the same page with senior leadership who will be instrumental in supporting and championing new programs and initiatives.
Kelly Wakefield, Senior Manager of Global Benefits at Moderna, believes employee surveys are a crucial step in designing a competitive benefits package. The company conducts total rewards optimization surveys, which are an in-depth way of understanding how employees perceive and value the benefits Moderna offers. They then use this data to refine their benefits strategy.
“I think it’s really important to understand your different employee populations,” Kelly said. “Why build a benefits package that no one is going to utilize because they don’t value the benefits? We use those data points to determine what employees value most, which helps inform our design.”
3. Create an action plan
Before communicating the results from the survey, have a detailed plan in place. For example, let’s say employees at your organization aren’t engaged because they feel that employee health and wellness aren’t valued. Many report not having time to exercise or cook a healthy meal and feel burned out by their role.
You’ll need to thoroughly research types of employee wellness programs, establish a planning committee, create goals, determine a budget, and carefully evaluate vendors. As these steps may take some time, it’s okay to let employees know that their concerns have been heard and offer a detailed timeline on what to expect in terms of next steps. Transparency is critical in maintaining a relationship of trust with your team.
4. Communicate the results
A recent study showed that 85% of employees said they’re most motivated when management and leadership offer regular updates on company news. Communicating the results of your employee engagement survey to your team is a key step and one that is often the most challenging. This is where you’ll need to get creative and use multiple methods of communication to engage employees.
You can also rely on managers to communicate survey results and action items with their teams. Managers will have a more intimate understanding of their team’s needs and concerns, so they will be your best allies in successfully designing and implementing action plans.
5. Check back in
You’ve listened to your employees and implemented change… or so you think. It’s important to continually check in with employees and measure to see if new programs are successful. This means you might need to run future surveys along with focus groups or department meetings to dive into areas for improvement.
For example, if you made changes to a benefits program after an employee engagement survey, it will be important to check in on engagement rates and employee satisfaction on a regular basis to ensure that the initiatives were effective and your goals are being met. You should also send consistent communications to employees about the changes that have been made so they know that improving engagement and workplace culture is top of mind for your organization throughout the year. These communications can also serve as reminders for employees to participate in new programs.
Want to learn more about building a benefits plan that will increase employee engagement? Contact sales@getbenepass.com.
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