Every organization devises their own means of gauging their employee engagement levels, and typically, a survey is launched for the employees to gather their feedback.
Given below is a simple employee engagement survey, a fairly quick means of determining the levels of engagement.
Never (Score: 0 points); Sometimes yes (Score: 1 point); Always (Score: 2 points)
|
Sr. No. |
Question |
Never |
Sometimes yes |
Always |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1. |
Do I feel passionate about my job? | |||
|
2. |
Do I have a sense of belongingness towards my organization? | |||
|
3. |
Do I feel empowered to voice my opinions freely? | |||
|
4. |
Do I feel that my ideas are invited and implemented? | |||
|
5. |
Am I valued and recognized for my contributions? | |||
|
6. |
Do I feel challenged and inspired to meet my goals? | |||
|
7. |
Do I receive constant support and encouragement from my supervisor(s)? | |||
|
8. |
Do we collaborate and work well as a team in the peer group? | |||
|
9. |
Am I given the opportunity that aligns with my career aspirations? | |||
|
10. |
Do I feel accountable for my errors and omissions? | |||
|
11. |
Would I work with the organization on long-term basis? | |||
|
12. |
Would I refer my friends to join this organization? |
A score of (0 – 8) points indicates that your employees are highly disengaged.
A score of (9 – 16) points indicates that your employees are somewhat engaged.
A score of (17 – 24) points indicates that your employees are highly engaged.
Though the employee identity can be anonymous, it helps to collect some generic profile information on the age, gender, department, number of years of service with the company, and supervisor information to drill down the data further and understand where to lay focus. If the employee engagement quotient, that is, the number of employees highly engaged in proportion to overall employee headcount, is low, enterprises need to follow up with a detailed root cause analysis to assess the drivers of disengagement and revisit their systems, processes, and policies in place.
A recent survey from Gallup Inc., a research-based global performance-management consulting company, indicates that only 30% of American employees are engaged at the workplace. That is quite an alarming trend and needs serious retrospection as to what leads to disengagement.
Understanding the root cause behind employee disengagement is a critical step, and one useful technique in digging deep is the 5 Why Analysis.
Richard was a star performer in ABC team, and his performance has deteriorated over the last few months. Asking a series of Whys might lead us to the root cause:
Why? – He doesn't report to work regularly (the first why).
Why? – He is not motivated to work in ABC team (the second why).
Why? – The tasks he performs in ABC team don't interest him (the third why).
Why? – The tasks assigned to him are monotonous in nature (the fourth why).
Why? – The job profile mismatches with his skill levels and aspirations (fifth why and the root cause).
Match Richard's job profile with his skill levels and aspirations. Replace him with a junior level resource to perform his current tasks and offer challenging assignments to Richard.
In this scenario, by using the 5 Whys technique, we have figured out the root cause behind the disengagement and came up with a possible solution.
An employee always forms part of an organizational ecosystem where they are surrounded by three core entities within the organization. When they are misaligned with the key attributes or the stakeholders involving these entities, it might escalate to disengagement.
|
Entity |
Key Attributes |
Stakeholders |
|---|---|---|
|
Organization |
Vision, Culture, Leadership, Systems, Processes, Policies |
Executive Leadership, Senior Management |
|
Current Department |
Mentoring, Support, Relationship, Job Profile, Role |
Supervisor, Peers, Subordinates |
|
Support Functions |
Talent and Performance Management, Compensation and Benefits, Training |
Co-workers from other departments (HR, Finance, Training Executives) |
The common causes of disengagement include:
Lack of vision and thinking in leadership
Lack of purpose, goals, and expectations
Lack of training and support
Lack of open and transparent culture
Strained relationship with supervisor or peers
Job profile and skill level mismatch
Mundane tasks at work
Outdated systems and processes
Lack of job stability
Lack of rewards and recognition
Poor performance management
Lack of periodic and constructive feedback
The right pay for the right job has become more of a prerequisite for an employee when choosing a job. While compensation can satisfy employees to a certain extent, they don't have a direct influence or impact on the engagement levels. In some cases, disengagement can be completely attributed to the idiosyncrasies of the individuals, for example, some employees might have the tendency to procrastinate, and some might inherently lack team spirit.
Organizations need to carry out a formal evaluation of their employee engagement levels, identify the prominent causes towards disengagement, and implement strategies to avert them in order to retain and extract the optimal value out of their talent mix.