For many organisations, it’s that time of the year when the results of the employee engagement survey come out, and leaders and teams start to pay closer attention to how the work force is feeling.
Once the results are out, there is an expectation of a response as to what will happen next. To meet this expectation, most leaders/teams adopt a 3 pronged strategy:
1. Analyse the results
2. Understand the causes
3. Devise an Action plan
The above approach seems pretty logical and there is nothing wrong with it per se – however, it is in the implementation of this approach that I find where leaders/teams get it wrong.
Here are the top 3 mistakes I see:
1. Not making it a collective and inclusive effort
If a team or a unit has low engagement, the question is this: Whose problem is that to solve? Is it the leader? Is it the leadership team? Is it the individuals in the unit?
Depending on how you answer this question, will determine the approach you take. Often the approach taken by leaders is along the lines of “…We’ll come back to you and let you know what we are going to do about our low engagement…”. This approach – whilst seeming efficient in the short term – is not sustainable, breeds an entitlement mindset, and doesn’t really do much to get people engaged.
Here’s my view:
- Borrowing from the phrase “It takes two to tango”, I believe low engagement is a problem that needs to be jointly owned by all parties (the leader, the leadership team and the individuals in the team)
- Each party needs to consider these two questions: What part of the problem do I own? What can I do to be part of the solution?
- The role of the leader and leadership team is to:
- create the time and a safe space for exploration
- facilitate deeper, richer and inclusive conversations
- listen to learn, and equally be part of the conversations
- dig deeper and diagnose what’s really going on at a system level
- The role of every individual in the team is to:
- be a player and not a spectator
- make the conversations personal e.g Where am I at? What is engaging me? What is dis-engaging me?
- look for solutions within their circle of influence as opposed to their circle of concern
2. Failing to hear the “Song beneath the words”
Most analyses of the survey results have two key problems:
- Taking the survey results on face value and solving the surface issues or ‘symptoms’ rather than analysing the root causes behind them
- Not considering other factors/issues that were not assessed in the survey that could have had an influence on the current feeling of engagement
To address these requires teams to:
- dig deeper on the data to see the subtle and not so obvious connections
- bring in other equally useful but less tangible and/or ‘not-part-of-the-survey’ inputs to the table e.g. the vibe, mood/feelings etc
- make connections in new and meaningful ways by asking “What else could this be about?” rather than taking the data literally
- diagnose at a “system” level rather than merely at face value i.e. What are the conditions in the system that, if we could address, would set us up for success?
- separate the technical causes from the adaptive causes (e.g. If I have a heart attack, the technical cause is blocked arteries, however the adaptive cause is years of poor lifestyle choices)
3. Not getting enough “bang-for-your-buck” through the plans and solutions
Some of the common issues in devising and executing plans and solutions include:
- Solutions that focus on the technical aspects (e.g. things/activity we can easily tick-off rather than the adaptive elements (e.g. changes in mind-set and behaviours)
- Focussing on a whole range of things rather than adopting the 80/20 i.e. the very few critical outcomes and strategies that could make the biggest difference
- Looking to add new initiatives without due consideration to what can be stopped and what can just be tinkered with within our normal BAU practices
- Not building on the strengths and what’s going well
- Keeping the engagement actions planning and monitoring separate from BAU, making it seem like “on top of and/or extra work to be done”
- Not getting the balance right between:
- What solutions apply to everyone vs what is local?
- What solutions are centrally co-ordinated vs what is up-to local teams to implement?
- Not calibrating and adjusting the plans along the way
