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The Value of Employee Engagement Surveys as Part of a Change Management Strategy
Written by: Marcia XenitelisArticle Overview: If you just change the paradigm from budget cuts... to opportunities, growth and involvement your organization's business results will be your barometer of employee engagement...
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Free Download - How To Get Change Management on the Project Management Agenda By Marcia Xenitelis |
The Value of Employee Engagement Surveys as Part of a Change Management Strategy
One of the things that continues to surprise me is that when times are bad organizations still spend money on employee engagement surveys. A general look around the office or factory and tea room discussions would make it obvious to all that wanted to see it that employees are not so much engaged as they are worried about their jobs. This leads us to two major issues to consider during tough times, the first is how we inspire confidence and innovation in an organization that appears to be in freeze mode. The second is what you should measure as an indicator of employee engagement.
Let's deal with inspiring confidence and innovation in your organization. Well this boils down to a change management strategy that focuses on getting employees actively involved at all levels in understanding the business and how their ideas can have a positive impact. Here's an example of what you could do.
1. Take real business data and share it with groups of employees at all levels that deal with customers in specific sectors.
2. Ask employees for ideas on improving or innovating just one aspect of your service offering or product line and test in a specific market segment on a small scale, say a sales territory or state.
3. Then after testing those ideas for a six week period ask employees to examine the business results.
4. Take those ideas that have shown a substantial improvement in sales and implement either state wide or nationally depending on your organization.
5. Design a reward and recognition program around the impact of these ideas on the business outcomes and start to energise your workforce.
It really is that simple, treat employees with respect, stop telling them what to do instead listen to what they have to say, put some rigor around the framework for ideas and reward outstanding results. This is how innovation happens and how you can energise an organization to respond quickly to changing market conditions.
Another key is to ensure that whatever change management strategy you design it has specific activities and responsibilities for management. Often we forget that managers are just as concerned during tough times about their job security, but their team members are looking at them for direction and support. So when we design change strategies ensure that there are key responsibilities and clearly defined activities for all levels of the organization. So practically what does this mean with our example above? Well you would design specific activities such as;
1. Managers would identify the real business data and share it with their teams
2. Managers would be responsible for selecting which ideas would be selected for testing in a specific market and they would decide which test market
3. Managers would obtain the business results at the end of the six week test period and organise briefings with their teams
4. The hierarchy of managers would then decide which tests produced the best result and decide which to implement and project plan that implementation
5. Together with human resources the management team would decide on a reward and recognition program and share it with their teams.
So what about employee engagement surveys? I say save your organization the tens of thousands of dollars they cost and invest your time in a well thought out change management strategy like that outlined above. This will ensure a climate where communication is open, ideas are valued and actions are implemented. All these steps are indicative of a workforce that is focussed, has purpose and feels a greater level of confidence about the future of their organization and therefore their role because they are actively involved in designing the future, not being told what do and when to do it. If you just change the paradigm from budget cuts, budget cuts and budget cuts to opportunities, growth and involvement your organization's business results will be your barometer of employee engagement, no survey required.
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About the Author: Marcia Xenitelis RSS for Marcia's articles - Visit Marcia's website  Click here to visit Marcia's website   The Value of Employee Engagement Surveys as Part of a Change Management Strategy Are Your Communication Strategies Really Engaging Employees Change Management and Employee Communication Strategies How To Cascade Messages via Managers To Employees How To Engage Employees With Technology Based Change |
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- Hi everyone,
I am new to the forum and I recently started my own Human Capital (HR) consulting firm called HRPreneur Inc. HRP focuses on making human capital a strategic differentiator for SME's.
Below is a summary about HRP;
Who We Are:
HRP is a Human Capital consulting firm with 30 years of experience that becomes an extension of your company by providing a full array of services to help you create a highly engaged workforce focused on achieving strategic results in order to build a long lasting great company!
Mission:
HRP provides small and medium sized businesses a Strategic HR Business Partner to increase employee engagement, resulting in cost savings, increased productivity and results at an affordable rate!
Vision:
To inspire and warrant SME's reach their full competency!
Cost Effectiveness:
We provide over 30 years of experience at a fraction of the cost at a strategic executive HR business level
You will save between 50% to 60% in costs per year on salary, bonus, benefits, training, office space alone
We will provide you additional cost efficiencies through our services
Services:
• Strategic Human Resources Planning
• Organizational Redesign
• Change Management
• Organizational Culture Development
• Employee Engagement Programs
• Leadership Assessment and Development
• Compensation Design
• Talent Acquisition
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