Employee Surveys as a Strategic Tool: Making Use of Employee Research Data

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Employee Surveys as a Strategic ToolMaking Use
of Employee Research Data

• CAUBO June, 2007

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Content

• Current approaches to employee research
• Survey analytics to guide action planning
• Feedback and action planning with a purpose
• Employee research in the context of a University
  Challenges and Opportunities

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Current Approaches to Employee SurveysDesigned
to inform organizational decisions
Mercers Survey Approach
Traditional Employee Surveys

• Improve employee satisfaction
• Focused solely on satisfaction with pay,
  benefits, job security, working conditions the
  Me issues
• Often used strictly to avoid negative
  occurrences
• Strictly an HR process, with little connection to
  the business strategy
• Priorities determined only through benchmarking
  How do we compare?

• Improve employee satisfaction and engagement
• Focused broadened to include efficiency,
  leadership, teamwork, customer orientation, and
  career development the We issues
• Used to better leverage people assets to achieve
  business results
• Integrated diagnostic with direct connection to
  organization strategy
• Priorities determined by identifying key drivers
  of employee satisfaction and engagement

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Current Approaches to Employee Surveys
Engagement lies at the heart of a winning
employee experience

• Employee engagement is a heightened and sustained
  emotional and intellectual connection employees
  have for their job, organization, and co-workers
  that dramatically increases discretionary effort
  and significantly improves work performance
• It calls for a partnership between our employees
  and the organization - a partnership that drives
  organizational transformation and performance
• Extraordinary employee engagement drives
  performance
• Adapted from US Conference Board definition of
  employee engagement

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Current Approaches to Employee Surveys What does
engagement mean to employees?

• Current perspectives on engagement indicate that
  it includes three major elements
• Cognitive
• Affective
• Behavioral
• The specific manifestation of those elements will
  vary from organization to organization,
  reflecting, among other things
• History of the organization
• Culture of the organization
• Mission of the organization
• Employment brand of the organization
• Empirical analysis of survey data will reveal the
  specific make-up of engagement, as influenced by
  the unique qualities of the work place and people

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Current Approaches to Employee Surveys Measuring
engagement for your employees

• Because engagement means something different to
  different populations within different industries
  and different organizations, survey design should
  include a range of possible index elements

UOttawas Engagement Index
Mercers Engagement Index

• I am proud to work for this organization.
• I am willing to go above and beyond to help
  this organization succeed.
• I have a strong sense of commitment to this
  organization.
• I would recommend this organization to friends
  and relatives as a good place to work.
• At the present time, I am not seriously
  considering leaving this organization.

• I am proud to work for the University of Ottawa.
• I am willing to go beyond the requirements of my
  assigned duties to help the University succeed.
• I have a strong sense of commitment to the
  success of the University.
• I have a strong sense of commitment to the
  success of my faculty/department/service.
• I have a strong sense of commitment to the
  success of the Universitys students.

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Content

• Current approaches to employee research
• Survey analytics to guide action planning
• Feedback and action planning with a purpose
• Employee research in the context of a University
  Challenges and Opportunities

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Survey Analytics to Guide Action Planning
Creating an engagement index

• Factor analysis of survey items reveals
  engagement index
• Common components
• Pride in the organization
• Commitment to the organization
• Willing to go beyond the requirements of the job
• Typically find strong factor loadings and high
  reliabilities (above .80)
• Relies on effective survey construction
• Method of representing the index in numerical
  terms depends on desire for ease of replication,
  ease of interpretation/understanding
• More than one engagement index?
• Conceptual and empirical considerations

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Survey Analytics to Guide Action Planning
Engagement driver analysis

• Determining the key drivers of engagement informs
  the organization on how they might deploy
  resources most efficiently to support and enhance
  engagement among employees
• There are many lists of employee engagement
  drivers, and certain items appear on many lists,
  such as
• Work that gives a feeling of personal
  accomplishment
• Challenging work opportunities for continuous
  learning
• Career advancement opportunities
• Paid fairly given performance and contribution to
  the organization
• Belief that the organization is well-managed
• Mercer research indicates that key drivers of
  engagement vary among organizations and among
  business units within each organization

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Survey Analytics to Guide Action Planning
Engagement driver analysis
Hypothesized Drivers
Key Driver 1
?
Key Driver 2

• Leadership Direction
• Resources to Do the Job
• Customer Service
• Communication
• Training
• Professional Development
• Immediate Manager
• Performance Management
• Compensation Benefits
• Teamwork Collaboration
• Ethics Integrity

?
Employee Engagement
Key Driver 3
?
?
Key Driver 4
?
Key Driver 5
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Survey Analytics to Guide Action Planning
Engagement driver analysis (contd)
54. Overall, I am confident I will be able to
achieve my long-term career objectives at this
organization
.34
12. I have a clear understanding of our
organizations future direction
Employee Engagement
32. My supervisor encourages open, honest
two-way communication
10. I am given good opportunities to improve and
develop my skills at my organization
13. Employees at my organization are treated
fairly, regardless of position or background
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Survey Analytics to Guide Action Planning
Analyzing key findings

• An overview of the survey results for the
  organization as a whole
• Analysis of key differences across segments
• Analysis of important differences among
  demographic groups (e.g., short- vs. long-tenure
  employees)
• Comparisons to normative data
• Identification of key drivers of employee
  engagement
• Discussion around integrating key findings into
  ongoing human capital strategies

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Content

• Current approaches to employee research
• Survey analytics to guide action planning
• Feedback and action planning with a purpose
• Employee research in the context of a University
  Challenges and Opportunities

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Feedback and Action PlanningTypical patterns of
survey use
Always conducted (73)
Sometimes conducted (68)
Occasionally and/or ineffectively conducted (44)
Organizational Improvement
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Feedback and Action Planning Building acceptance
There must be something wrong with the
questionnaire because our scores couldnt be that
low.
I need to ensure we let everyone know that this
action is driven by the survey
Action
Denial
What a bunch of complainers. They dont realize
how good they have it here.
Decision
Anger
I think some of our scores are low because we
simply havent communicated all the good things
we are doing.
There are things we can do to change some of
this . . ..
Acceptance
Negotiation
The scores are low, but what should we expect
given the changes we have been going through?
Im surprised theyre not even lower!
Depression
These results are awful. I dont know how we
will survive if our employees feel this way.
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Feedback and Action Planning Survey follow-up
process P.A.C.E.
Priorities
Accountabilities Ownership of issues Progress
communication Accountability
Change Allocate resources Establish change teams
Root-cause analysis Recommendations Implementatio
n
Evaluation
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Feedback and Action Planning Assessing the
context for action planning
People
Collaborative


Consultative


Directive


Processes
Rewards
Style of
leadership

Transformational
Mercers Change DynamicTM
Structure
Scale of
Type of
Decision making
change
change
Incremental
Information and knowledge
Depth of
change
(sources of

• Enhance action planning and engage leadership by
  mapping survey results back to the Universitys
  strategic objectives and considering the change
  dynamics involved

energy)
Whole


organization
Business unit


Personal


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Feedback and Action Planning Depth of change
Local
Organization-Wide


Issue 1 Issue 2
Short-term
Issue 4


Issue 3 (local support) Issue 5
Long-term
Issue 3
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Feedback and Action Planning Accountabilities

• Development of Action Plans
• Communication of Actions
• Development of Budgets and Integration with
  Business Planning Process
• Monitoring of Actions
• Employee Updates

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Feedback and Action Planning Accountabilities
Senior Administration
Follow-up Champion
Data Refinement e.g. focus groups/management
review
Supported by
Specialists (HR, IT, Comms, etc.)
Local Leaders
Special Issue Project Teams
Cross-functional teams
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Feedback and Action Planning 10 tips for
communicating results

• Communicate results and the process for next
  steps as soon as possible. Prompt communication
  establishes credibility, helps avoid rumors and
  ensures information is official and accurate
• Structure expectations by explaining the
  time-scale and responsibilities for follow-up
• Consider which communication vehicles are
  available and best
• Share the purpose and goals of the survey process
• Communicate University overall first, then
  faculty/service results and local results
• Handle the sharing of local results with
  sensitivity
• Present a balanced picture of strengths and
  concerns
• Restrict the number of issues to the vital few
  which have the greatest impact on performance
• Demonstrate the links between the survey findings
  and strategic objectives
• Establish clear timetables, responsibilities and
  deliverables for action planning

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Feedback and Action Planning Action planning
implementation

• What are we doing already?
• Actions are currently in place to address the
  issue. The requirements are
• Review the action and modify as required
• Communicate the effectiveness of the action to
  employees

• What can we do in the short-term?
• Actions can be fully implemented within one year
  of conducting the survey. The requirements are
• Clarify root causes of problem, develop options
• Develop action plan with budget, assigned
  responsibilities and schedule

• What are our longer-term goals?
• Actions will require one to two years to fully
  implement. The requirements are
• Clarify root causes of problem, develop options
• Develop action plan with budget, assigned
  responsibilities and schedule

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Feedback and Action Planning Survey feedback
sessions to develop insights

• Survey feedback sessions with employees help
  leaders become more deeply involved in the survey
  process by gaining a better understanding of the
  areas of concern
• Review, present and explain survey results,
  providing the case for priority areas
• Brainstorm List issues and write down all ideas
  / reactions
• Categorize statements Draw possible connections
  between ideas / reactions
• Develop core statement of problem Generate
  through individual attempts, consensus, or start
  with item wording
• Identify actions to address core statements and
  check for completeness Who, what, when, where,
  why, how
• Finalize problem statement Modify or add to a
  problem statement if necessary (often
  incorporating answers to questions above)
• Generate recommendations for solutions
• Select next issue

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Feedback and Action Planning Monitoring and
evaluating

• The process of monitoring and evaluating progress
  is critical to lead and demonstrate change.
• Maintain the momentum on the survey
• Make the link between the survey results and
  improvement initiatives to clearly demonstrate
  that employee input does make a difference
• Share accomplishments Measure progresses versus
  the measures of success you previously
  identified report progress on a regular basis
  and give credit for actions taken communicate on
  the status of any outstanding issues with
  employees
• Continue to listen to your employees
• Invite feedback from employees to gauge progress,
  either formally (during interviews) or
  informally
• Discuss actions / progress / challenges with your
  managers/leaders
• Share key learnings
• Identify best practices and transfer them to
  other teams / departments

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Content

• Current approaches to employee research
• Survey analytics to guide action planning
• Feedback and action planning with a purpose
• Employee research in the context of a University
  Challenges and Opportunities

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Challenges and OpportunitiesClearing post-survey
hurdles
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Challenges and Opportunities Employee research
in a University setting

• Challenges
• Critical Audience
• Expert knowledge of research design, statistics
• Culture of skepticism and critique
• Participation
• Participation rates for University surveys are
  typically very low (typically 20 - 55)
• Multiple Stakeholders
• Administration
• Faculty
• Support Staff
• Timing of process
• Public scrutiny
• Role spans and perceptions
• The role of Dean may be perceived differently by
  incumbents versus employees
• Ownership of action planning

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Challenges and Opportunities Employee research
in a University setting

• Opportunities
• Critical Audience
• Expert knowledge of research design, statistics
• Culture of skepticism and critique
• Connecting with other measures
• Trending against NESI scores over time
• Linkage analysis with other measures

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Combining both approaches provides a more robust
picture
Challenges and Opportunities Measuring both what
employees say and what they do