Congratulations! Your employee engagement survey yielded a slew of valuable insights. When your front-line leaders share them with their teams, higher morale and lower turnover are a given. Or at least that’s your plan.
But are your managers up to the task? Probably not. Honestly, that’s not their fault. It’s up to senior leadership and HR professionals to set them up for success in communicating the survey’s findings and spelling out what success looks like. Your organization spent a lot of time and money on the survey, and you’ll want to squeeze the most value from the findings. Here’s how to do that:
- Spread the word. When a business commits the time and resources to custom engagement survey, you would expect that leaders would be itching to act on the results. Sometimes, however, those executives inexplicably don’t disclose the very information they were so eager to get. Or they wait so long to share the intel that it becomes outdated and useless. Simply taking a survey is not enough to create change.
- Simplify, simplify, simplify. Your managers aren’t statisticians or human-capital analysts. Don’t ask them to draw their own conclusions from the findings. If you plan to share the entire report with them, flag no more than three areas for focus. A few specific areas are more manageable and more easily translation into action.
- Set managers up for success. You can’t expect a manager to improve something over which they have no control. So it’s pointless to ask a team leader to improve outcomes pay or benefits. It’s more practical and helpful to recommend best practices they can implement, such as behaviors to try, behaviors to avoid and new ways to address employee concerns.
- Help them lead. Brief managers on the key points you want them to share with their teams. Offer advice and tips for listening nonjudgmentally and incorporating group feedback into their action plans. Utilize a standard action-planning template that helps legitimize plans and boost accountability.
- Hold them accountable. Setting goals is good. Following through to make sure those goals are achieved is great. So how will they ensure that those action plans are followed? Who will check in with them and help them over any rough spots? Create or assign a support team of higher-level executives to advise on realistic goal setting and execution.
- Keep perspective. A manager may feel that an action plan to improve her team’s engagement is just one more task on her to-do list. The reality is the opposite: Taking the prescribed actions will actually lighten her load because engaged employees are happier, more productive and less likely to leave. And those factors make a manager’s job easier.
When employees devote the effort to completing a company survey with candor, they expect their employer to act on their feedback. Position your managers to do that and everyone will benefit. Spring can help. We’ll send you a free preview of our online platform and tools. Contact us at [email protected].
