When to Conduct Employee Surveys

Timing isn’t everything in employee engagement research, but it’s definitely important to consider. The best time to send out employee surveys varies according to each organization’s culture, history, and goals. If your firm has never conducted research before, an initial wave of surveys will set a starting point for employee engagement and any other factors you may choose to measure. As the results of this first survey will serve as a compass for future research, it’s a good idea to include as many employees as possible. Create a specific, generous time window for returning the surveys. A reminder email in the middle of fielding the survey will help garner additional responses. After your first round of research, your action plans, among other factors, will dictate when to survey your employees.

1. Set Dates for Measuring Improvement

Most companies administer surveys according to a specific, predetermined time schedule. The advantage of this approach is that it highlights changes over time. For instance, if your first batch of surveys indicated that 35% of employees were engaged, you may choose to survey the same workforce again in six months to measure whether your efforts to boost engagement are actually working.

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Fun: The Secret Ingredient in Employee Engagement

Western cooking traditionally recognizes four major tastes: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. The Japanese, however, add a fifth taste called unami, or savory flavor. Unami is beloved for its ability to enhance all of the other flavors of a dish. Just like chefs, managers must maintain a delicate balance of key ingredients to maximize their workforce. Ingredients like salaries and benefits, feedback mechanisms, and good training are all important to strengthen Employee Engagement Management (EEM), and even bolster your Customer Engagement. But there is usually one ingredient that is often forgotten. Just what is the unami of the business world? Fun.

Fun is the unexpected ingredient that can enhance your firm’s employee engagement.

Why Focus on the Employee?
Many managers are probably wagging their heads right now, scoffing at the idea of focusing on employees in such hard economic times. It’s hard enough to keep customers these days--why focus on the employee? Because doing so increases Customer Engagement. As PeopleMetrics' Vice President Kate Feather stated in a podcast about the link between EEM and CEM, “If customers see and feel the engagement of the [employees] they’re interacting with, they come away with a better feeling about the organization, and then they’re more inclined to come back in the future, and more inclined to recommend the organization to family and friends.” Customers notice and like engaged employees, partly because engaged employees go above and beyond the call of duty for the customer. Additionally, customers enjoy interacting with engaged employees because it’s just more fun. As Ms. Feather explains, “There’s a real connection between customer and employee behaviors, driven by how much the [sales] experience is memorable and enjoyable, either for the employee, or for the customer.”

To put it plainly, a direct correlation exists between customer engagement and key business indicators like ROI, revenue growth, and return on assets. Furthermore, research indicates that the companies with the most engaged customers also have highly engaged employees.


~Monica Nolan, 2009

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Benefits of Multiple Waves of EEM Research

We live in an era that values immediate satisfaction. Modern technology has made everything from food to entertainment available within seconds. Yet, even today, certain things are better when they take a little more time. Employee engagement is one of those items. A long-term, outcome-based approach is useful for improving employee engagement. By examining the experience of one company, Coca-Cola Hellenic, you can see the benefits of doing multiple waves of employee engagement research.

To explore how companies are improving employee engagement around the globe, let’s take a look at Coca-Cola Hellenic, a company that has done multiple waves of employee engagement research. Coca-Cola Hellenic is an international bottler of non-alcoholic beverages that operates in 28 countries. Their business is people-intensive and executives at Coca-Cola Hellenic have recognized that employee engagement is key to meeting their goal of being the undisputed leader in all of their markets.

In an initial wave of research, Coca-Cola Hellenic employees were surveyed to establish baseline engagement and to identify key drivers of engagement. The analysis identified a clear set of suggested actions to improve engagement.

Full Article HERE.

Five Effective Real-World Approaches to Employee Recognition

Employee recognition has proven to be an influential factor in employee retention, engagement, and motivation. Organizations that successfully and consistently implement employee recognition enjoy long-term stability and higher profit margins. To better understand effective employee recognition, we’ve outlined five guidelines for this management strategy, along with real-world examples for each approach.

1. Tailor your recognition program to your organizational culture. No one company’s program should be exactly the same as another’s. Your employees are unique and part of a similarly unique culture; thus, they require a culture-specific recognition program.

Example: In Keeping the People Who Keep You In Business, Leigh Branham highlights Henley Healthcare, a Texas maker of non-invasive medical products. Henley Healthcare polled its office staff to learn what kind of reward they would like for working long hours. The results were clear: 42% preferred time off, 22% preferred clothing, and 20% preferred tickets to cultural events. This information allowed Henley Healthcare to create a recognition program that reflects what its employees actually want.

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A Manager’s Role in Customer Engagement

Customer service training guidebooks traditionally focus on molding the worker, not the manager. Similarly, many firms deliver customer engagement training only to new entry-level employees. Sales managers, it is often assumed, already have customer service skills, since they must have acquired them in order to be promoted. And yet managers impact customer engagement in unique ways. By understanding managers’ roles, executives can better train and equip them for delivering unparalleled service.

One immediately apparent managerial role is addressing unhappy customers. Someone has to respond when a customer asks to speak with a higher up. Accordingly, firms may train managers in soothing frustrated customers. Specific concessions or treats may be extended to keep a customer who is considering abandoning the brand. However, if managers are only trained to address the situation and not the overall issue than customer attrition is inevitable.

Today, the most effective managers do more than simply carry out executives’ customer service orders. This represents a shift in business operations. To use a military metaphor, previously, managers were often seen as enlisted men, not officers. It wasn’t a part of their job description to strategize; they were simply expected to carry out the plans that superior officers had designed, even if they knew from personal experience that the plans wouldn’t work. Today, many firms share the burden of strategy by educating their entire work force in customer engagement. In this new paradigm, managers do more than just respond to complaints.

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5 Tips, 3 Approaches for Encouraging Peer-To-Peer Recognition

In his book The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard L. Florida highlights the factors that motivate creative workers like programmers and scientists. One of his conclusions is that increasing numbers of modern workers are motivated, at least in part, by peer recognition. This is why, even in today’s rocky economic climate, many people are willing to work for free on projects that they feel will win the respect of their peers. Fortunately, progressive managers are beginning to recognize the power of peer-to-peer recognition.

In addition to the motivational factor, many managers encourage peer recognition because they know that it is usually accurate. As Judith A. Hale explains in Performance-Based Management, peers may deliver more detailed, effective feedback, since they have more opportunities to observe their coworkers’ performance. As Ms. Hale writes, “It is not uncommon for the manager to be removed from where the work is performed and, therefore, rarely see what people do or how they do it.”

If you’re looking to develop a peer recognition program for your workplace, keep a few general feedback guidelines in mind: Read the FULL Article