Assessing Employee Engagement

An organization conducts a confidential survey of employees to assess workplace satisfaction. Responses are received from 75% of employees, and, after analyzing comments, management requires mandatory retraining of all supervisors. What important step has the organization omitted?

Although it is laudable that the organization has acted on the survey results, the organization should have reported key results from the survey to employees. Given the high response rate, the survey must have been designed to facilitate response. Since the survey focus was general, there is no indication that management had predetermined the need for supervisory training

Examples of career development activities linked to employee engagement are:

Career advancement opportunities within the organization. These can include job enlargement (doing different tasks within the same job) or job enrichment (increasing the depth of a job by adding responsibilities).

Career development

Career development programs provide employees with opportunities to learn new ideas and skills, thus preparing them for future positions and challenges

Relationship with management. Some key activities identified by SHRM as being particularly important include:

Communication between employees and senior management. Autonomy and independence to make decisions. Management's recognition of employee job performance (feedback, incentives, rewards).

Compensation and benefits. Some key considerations related to employee engagement and compensation and benefits are:

Compensation/pay overall. Being paid competitively with the local market. Flexibility to balance life and work issues (alternative work arrangements, including job sharing, flexible schedules, telecommuting, etc.). Medical benefits for employees and their families.

A department manager is interested in knowing how his employees are doing with their work activities and how he can best support each employee on his team, particularly with issues within the manager's control. Which approach does this best describe?

Employers often conduct stay interviews as a retention tool to keep good employees from jumping ship. Unlike exit interviews, which amount to autopsies of why an employee is leaving, stay interviews are conducted during employment to help employers ascertain why good employees stay and what might make them leave. It's important to listen and gather ideas from an employee about how a manager and the organization can retain him or her.

To maximize senior leadership support of action to be taken on the results of a recent climate survey, which is the most important message for the HR manager to deliver?

Employers that acknowledge findings, whether good or bad and short-term or long-term, find that trust increases due to transparency.

Work environment. Examples include:

Meaningfulness of the job (understanding how the job contributes to organizational values or society as a whole). Overall corporate culture (organization's reputation, work ethics, values, working conditions, etc.). Relationships with coworkers. Contribution of work to the organization's business goals. The work itself (it is interesting, challenging, exciting, etc.).

What must HR do to overcome the biggest challenge in implementing an effective workplace flexibility strategy?

One of the biggest challenges to implementing successful alternative work programs is ensuring that the immediate supervisor is on board. While overall culture is also important, the supervisor must be trained and supported to manage remote employees.

Other topics that may be addressed when assessing employee engagement include:

Organizational business strategy and direction, creativity, innovation, etc. Customer focus. Perceptions of HR effectiveness. Employee retention and attrition issues.

Properly designed and skillfully conducted, employee surveys have many benefits. Specifically, they can:

Provide a direct means of assessing employee attitudes that would otherwise be unreported. Improve employee relations by signaling to employees that their views are considered important. Increase levels of employee trust—if results are acted upon. Improve the satisfaction levels of customers—happy employees can translate to happy customers. Detect early warning signs of workforce problems and/or sources of conflict.

Two criteria should be applied when designing recognition systems:

Recognition should be tied to performance that helps the organization meet its strategic goals and to the organization's values. The form of the recognition should have significance for the recipient.

There are several benefits for HR and managers to debrief the results of stay interviews.

Results can be analyzed for organizational patterns, insights can be shared, and so forth. Debriefing also helps to evaluate what changes need to happen in individual departments or what issues should be addressed at an organizational level.

Leaders of a new high tech organization are seeking HR's expertise in retaining their highly skilled workforce, especially as the organization expands. When should HR start the employee retention strategies and practices?

Retention strategies and practices start with the organization's branding and recruitment efforts and continue on through the employment experience.

A manager asks the HR manager to help with retaining a high-potential employee. Which of the following recommendations would best address this request?

Stay interviews allow a manager to identify what drives engagement and retention with an employee. They are often conducted with high-potential employees. Stay interviews are different from exit interviews, which gather data following a departure. Stay interviews are considered a leading indicator of engagement and satisfaction, while exit interviews are considered a lagging indicator.

A manager wants to implement a paid-time-off program for employees to volunteer in their local communities. What is the best way to respond to his request?

The concept is good. The more employees are integrated into their organization and the local community, the greater the commitment to the organization. However, the concept needs to be explored further and a clear policy developed by a group that represents various perspectives. Implementing the idea without this examination, consensus, and definition will lead to inconsistencies and complaints.

In the final round of hiring, an employer invites candidates to spend half a day working alongside an employee and an hour with HR reviewing total rewards and company policies. The employees who work with the candidates are chosen because of their tenure with the company and their strong performance ratings. The employees may or may not be performing the job that is being filled. This practice has not increased retention levels. What might be wrong?

The job preview experience may not be representative of what a new hire would be doing in the first months of employment, since candidates are not necessarily experiencing a typical workday in the position they might be entering. Candidates at this stage should be fully informed about the employer's offerings, culture, and policies. It would be a poor use of resources to implement the process with an entire group of candidates invited for an interview. There is no indication that the information given to candidates about career paths and opportunities is incorrect.

HR at a professional services organization needs to assess employee interest in a possible new benefit quickly. Which is the best vehicle HR should use?

The online survey can be conducted quickly and a response threshold set. The other methods are too time-consuming.

Which of the following recommendations should the HR manager be sure to make to managers to help ensure a successful remote working arrangement?

To ensure a successful remote working arrangement, the specific work role should be reviewed for the appropriateness of working off site, and the individual employee's performance and work style should be evaluated to ensure that remote working can be successful.

Realistic Job Preview (RJP) has three primary objectives

To give candidates as much information as possible so that they can make an informed decision about their suitability for the job To allow the organization the opportunity to portray the job objectively—including both favorable and unfavorable aspects To increase the potential of a good match between the candidate and the organization

In an effective stay interview

managers ask standard, structured questions in a casual and conversational manner that should encourage open communication. Most stay interviews take less than half an hour.

Realistic Job Preview (RJP)

a preview of a job that provides both positive and negative information about the job and the company

Employee surveys are sometimes broken into three categories: Employee attitude surveys

attempt to determine employees' perceptions of such topics as company culture and company image, the quality of management, the effectiveness of compensation and benefits programs, organizational communication and involvement issues, diversity, and safety and health concerns.

stay interviews

employees discuss why they like (or do not like) their current job. Stay interviews also help to assess the degree of employee satisfaction and engagement that exists in a department and/or organization.

Employee engagement surveys

focus on employees' level of job satisfaction, commitment, and morale. Survey questions or statements should explicitly link to business objectives.

An employee survey

is an instrument used to collect and assess employee attitudes on and perceptions of the work environment. Employee surveys provide formal documentation on important organizational issues.

Employee opinion surveys

tend to measure important data on specific issues. These surveys may seek to gain opinions on specific processes an employee performs, safety procedures, or some other issue the employer may be evaluating or considering.