A key question facing companies who run Employee Engagement surveys is – “Should we set KPIs around engagement and reward managers for it?” And then – “How should we do it?”
It is critical for organizations to maintain a balance between being completely metric-driven on engagement and developing a well-aligned culture to facilitate engagement? After all, your Employee Engagement initiative does not have an end date! While metrics help you to build accountability, ownership and literacy about this important issue, we also need more intrinsic approaches by the leadership / HR to drive change and progress. A balance is ideal.
Towers Watson (disclosure: my employer) has a comprehensive white paper providing guidelines on how Engagement survey results can be built as a KPI. You can download the detailed PDF report from this link. The report, firstly, builds a case for incorporating these metrics as a part of incentives and then provides a high-level overview of the design approaches. It also mentions that in certain cases, organizations would benefit by taking a segmented approach to setting these KPIs. Finally, there is a list of factors that you should consider for assessing whether this is an appropriate thing to do for your organization in terms of ROI.
Happy Reading!
Thanks for sharing. This is a very interesting report. I was particularly caught by this statement: “We believe that actively managing engagement provides companies with a similar tool that can influence the overall performance of the organization while working within its strategic and competitive context.”
We’ve found the same to be true with employee recognition. As they do with engagement, too many think of recognition as a “soft” business practice. Not true. It can be actively managed, measured, and improved. And if you do it right, you can also actively manage your company culture.
It’s a complex topic and one we dive into in more depth in our book being released on Monday, Winning with a Culture of Recognition, if you’re interested.
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Derek – thanks as usual for stopping by my blog to share your thoughts. I cannot agree with you more. Recognition is not a soft issue and can affect business outcomes.
I will try to check if the book is released here in Singapore. Typically, it can take a while.
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Happy to send you a copy of the book, Abhishek. We very much respect your work and opinion. Just let me know where you would like mailed. Send me an email at irvine@globoforce.com.
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Derek – much much appreciated! Will drop you a note.
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