The value of employee engagement surveys must be linked to an organisations business, Brown tells Rohit Nautiyal
How important are employee engagement surveys for an organisation that is looking to develop strong bench strength?
Today all the graduates passing out of leading B-schools have to make a tough decision. They can either start their own business or choose to work for an employer. Therefore, it becomes crucial for companies to invest in employee attraction followed by right engagement at the workplace. CEOs are constantly questioning their HR departments on the return on investment in employee engagement activities. Smart organisations that are monitoring their employee engagement initiatives are able to see a change in their turnover and productivity. We have categorised some of our clients in the Global High-Performer Group who we collaborate with on an annual basis. With average workforce of one lakh employees, these companies not only have strong financial results but also have strong results from the people perspective.
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Since an organisation may be financially successful and yet a difficult place to work from an employee perspective, an additional screen is applied before selecting the final list of organisations to be included in the high-performer group. These companies are led by great leaders who focus not only on whats to be done but how it can be done best. They are also good communicators who know how to initiate dialogue with their teams. Our research has established that companies that paid extra attention to their employee engagement levels during a recession or a slowdown perform better at the stock market.
The formal position of leadership can often create a wall or a glass ceiling between the leader and his team members and make it difficult for the leader to stay connected and relate with his team in a way that will earn their trust and inspire their loyalty. Given the current state of flux, how can leaders break past this limitation and increase their influence?
It is actually a generational story. While the old generation of leaders grew up in organisations that valued hierarchies, millennials belong to a technology and communication-driven generation. Let me explain this by drawing an analogy with Indias political environment. At this point, people of the country want to be heard and play a crucial role in forming the next government. Similar environment is needed in companies. For instance, at times the C-suite is out of touch with the views and opinions of the employees in middle management. It is important to stay in constant touch with your middle management. It is they who are executing the strategies made at the top all the time.
What is that key insight on employee engagement that companies often miss?
In various surveys conducted over the years we saw how earlier an employee was just a passive receiver of employee engagement initiatives. So organisations had the onus of deciding on the flow of communication, management support and rewards for employees. This was a wrong approach. Now theres a clear need to encourage employee participation. For instance, how does a company factor in various engagement objectives of different employees? While one may be interested in climbing the organisational ladder faster, the other can choose to focus only on remuneration. For the organisation, it is about meeting the employee half-way and using technology to make things happen. Many large IT and outsourcing companies in India capable of redeploying resources have been downsizing on a regular basis. While the easiest way out for a company is to hand out pink slips, how can they conduct redeployment and earn the tag of a considerate employer?
Redeployment programmes can be either a lip service or something a company can do to build its reputation and fight off the survivor syndrome in those left behind. Whenever a large organisation faces a downsizing situation, redeployment should be its Plan A. Research has established that people want to work for a company that acts in a way that shows strong integrity, especially during tough times. Companies that behave otherwise end up disengaging their employees.
What are the key skills that a new age employee research agency should hone to be at the top of its game?
It is important for research agencies to know not only what to measure but when to measure. We ensure that clients get a meaningful result at the right time. Right sampling techniques is one focus area. People often criticise research agencies for small sample sizes in various surveys. At one level it is about how confident one is about the results based on the gathered response.
Employee research is very different from market research. The former is about captive audience research as organisations we work with provide validated data on employees. For instance, if we are doing research for an organisation with a captive audience of one lakh employees, a sample size of 350 could be useful. With this sample the results will be 95 per cent accurate. On our part, while conducting surveys, we try to reach out to almost every employee in a given company. While many clients have been doing employee surveys every two years, they are also creating strategies to gain insights through a smaller sample of people on a particular topic.
Bottom line: The research partner of a company should be able to provide value through the listening mechanism of engagement surveys. This value must be linked to the business. Only then an organisations leadership will see employee engagement research as an investment and not additional cost.
THE MIND READER
* Lesley Brown is responsible for the management and leadership of the Asia Pacific Employee Surveys team as well as directing key client projects. She works with companies at the executive and Board level to consult on the measurement and management of human capital issues that allow organisations to execute their strategies effectively
* Prior to joining Towers Watson, Brown worked with the Department of Defence and the Australian Bureau of Statistics
* She holds a Masters degree in Applied Science, Industrial & Organisational Psychology