Design a Strategy for Measuring Employee Engagement – Bersin by Deloitte

Employee Engagement – WHAT MATTERS, HOW TO MEASURE, AND TAKING ACTION

There is no single “go-to” solution for measuring or addressing engagement; each company brings its own unique issues, resources, and priorities to this complex subject. To address this increasingly important challenge, Bersin by Deloitte has developed the Design a Strategy for Measuring Employee Engagement Blueprint to lead organizations through the process of creating a customized strategy, including determining the most important engagement drivers, choosing an appropriate combination of engagement measurement options and / or vendors, understanding the results of engagement assessments, and taking action in response.

Measure What Matters

When organizations decide to assess employee engagement, many start by simply searching for an engagement survey vendor. They quickly learn, however, that there are a plethora of choices, each with its own theories about and approaches to employee engagement. Further, unless an organization understands what it wants to measure—and why—surveying employees may cause more problems than it solves. Organizations should be prepared to take action on the feedback they gather in order to show employees that they have been heard and their voices count. Otherwise, surveying can actually decrease engagement, because employees may feel as if their time has been wasted and the company does not value their input. A more effective approach is to start by identifying the organization’s most pressing employee challenges. Leaders can then decide which of those concerns they are willing and able to address. Keeping the focus aligned to the company’s business goals is also crucial. Targeting efforts in these ways will allow organizations to create a customized approach based on their most important engagement drivers. Only then can organizations prepare to actually measure employee engagement and take action based on the results. Bersin by Deloitte has created a three-stage employee engagement strategy design process to assist organizations in creating and implementing their own engagement strategies .

This process guides organizations along the path of deciding which engagement issues matter, how best to measure those topics, how to take action on the results, and how to assess whether that action has been effective. Because employees, their work, and an organization’s priorities change over time, this is a dynamic process that should evolve with a company and its goals. Addressing these foundation issues will allow organizations to collect and track data that can provide insight into performance over time and inform adjustments that might be needed as challenges are addressed and new ones emerge. Our Blueprint offers, Designing an Employee Engagement Strategy, which gives an in-depth look at each of the stages and provides insight into the choices an organization can make at each step in order to develop a strategy tailored to its needs.