Data behind how surveys broke employee engagement

Spot on Chuck. An annual survey is only ever a snapshot in time. A hell of a lot can happen in any organisation in 12 months so it is pretty tricky if not impossible to see decent trends. Having promoted these surveys for a number of years, I know most employees hate them and fail to see their value. But that is not the survey's fault, as Chuck says, it is just one tool. That's the fault of management and HR. Chris is right too in showing what should be done with the results of a survey. It has to be clear and transparent. Actions from the results have to be communicated properly. Employees have to see that changes are being made based on their feedback. Otherwise it is a tick box exercise as the inforgraphic says. There are companies promoting regular and shorter surveys (monthly) which they say improves engagement. I have no experience of them but they should show trends and changes more quickly. But they are also tools and you have plan and manage them in the right way too.

Ultimately, I think the best way to ensure surveys accurately measure engagement is to actually *deliver* on what you promise. At my last company, before we even sent out the survey, I got the C-level to commit to 1. When we would release the FULL results (approx. 2 weeks after the survey's completion) 2. When we would announce the top 3 initiatives we'd be focusing on in the coming year; *based* on the survey (approx. 2 weeks later); at which time we would also announce when colleagues could expect to see a detailed plan on those initiatives (we couldn't commit to that before the survey, because a detailed plan is dependent on what the issue actually is -- nevertheless, a month after the survey, you should have a high-level idea of how you're going to tackle those initiatives). Then, we delivered everything we said we would. The net result? The first year (I'd been there less than a year), we probably got about 65 percent response, and an overall employee engagement of approximately 45 percent (if you totaled up everything). The second year, after we delivered on what we said we would do .. the response jumped to about 85 percent, and overall employee engagement jumped to about 83 percent. There's a great temptation to just look at the numbers and ooh and aah .... but skilled communicators know the numbers just show the symptoms; you have to dig a little to get the causes.

I can see your point of view here BUT I will say that we just wrapped our Survey with a 78% response rate (out of 50,000 employees) with zero incentives. Really looking forward to seeing the results. This is our best measure of engagement at this stage. What else should we be looking at? Our email open / click thru rates, social media engagement, and intranet metrics are on our radar...but with a frontline workforce primarily "disconnected" from the company due to shifts the survey plays a role in how we measure commitment...

Great find. I'm sharing this with a couple of clients today.