Author - Emmaka Porchea-Veneszee
Desiring genuine employee engagement? Cease viewing feedback merely as a checklist or a metric to monitor. Cultivate a culture that prioritizes curiosity and strives for ongoing enhancement based on authentic employee feedback. The appropriate employee engagement survey can serve as one of your most effective instruments.
What constitutes employee engagement?
A deficient employee feedback culture
How Typeform assists in obtaining more candid employee feedback
Foster an employee feedback culture and enhance engagement with Typeform
Have we become so fixated on metrics that we have overlooked the human aspect of employee engagement? Whether it pertains to employee satisfaction scores, retention and turnover rates, or employee net promoter scores (eNPS), we have been conditioned to focus on the figures. The question is often, “Did we achieve our key performance indicators (KPIs)?” rather than, “Do we comprehend what our employees require?”
Your employees represent more than mere scores, rates, or figures. They are living, breathing individuals. Yet, we continue to perceive employee engagement as a metric.
What if we have been assessing the incorrect elements? What if it is time to consider employee engagement from a human perspective?
We are investigating how you can re-envision engagement as a cultural, everyday practice and how you can develop a more human-centric employee engagement strategy with Typeform.
What is employee engagement?
Every organization possesses its distinct characteristics, but broadly speaking, employee engagement is defined as "a performance strategy that differentiates high-performing cultures from those that are struggling," according to Gallup.
Pay attention to the term: high-performing cultures. Employee engagement is not merely about the number of employees who indicated "satisfied" on your employee satisfaction survey. No—it revolves around how secure employees feel in voicing difficult truths and their sense of belonging to an organization that genuinely appreciates their input.
Employee engagement embodies the essence of culture. It is not merely a task to be completed when a majority of responses indicate "satisfaction." Rather, engagement represents a daily dedication to fostering a culture centered on employee involvement.
A brief overview of the advantages of employee engagement
Content employees are a significant asset; however, by cultivating a culture of active listening within the workplace—one that genuinely prioritizes employee engagement—you can achieve remarkable outcomes in terms of financial performance, productivity, and reduced absenteeism. Consider the following:
A dysfunctional employee feedback culture
We have all experienced this scenario—HR distributes its annual survey soliciting feedback, and then, silence ensues. No responses, no follow-up, no changes. It often feels as though HR has merely assigned another task (completing this survey) to check off their list, which can be quite disheartening.
"Consistently soliciting employee feedback without taking subsequent action only fosters disengagement, as employees begin to lose faith in the organization’s commitment to listening," states Amanda Chaitnarine, Director of HR Diagnostics, Advisory & Data Insights at McLean & Company.
Instead of facilitating a meaningful dialogue that encourages listening and potential transformation, feedback often comes across as transactional. When the process feels more like a chore than a genuine conversation, the consequences include:
A disrupted feedback loop—where employers simply mark the employee engagement survey as completed, while employees either rush through or disregard the survey entirely, knowing their input is undervalued.
Skepticism from employees who doubt their voices will be acknowledged.
Silence from employees who prefer to focus on their work rather than complete yet another survey that is unlikely to effect change.
Ultimately, turnover may occur as employees grow weary of feeling unheard and witnessing their feedback ignored.
Conversely, "when employees are aware that their feedback is acknowledged and acted upon, it fosters trust and lays the groundwork for expanding future listening initiatives," Chaitnarine asserts.
Employee feedback should be a reciprocal dialogue—employees express their thoughts, while employers listen and take action.
Discover how we are fostering a culture of employee feedback at Form.
