The 5 Ingredients of an Employee Engagement Analytics Program

We’ve broken down the five ingredients that make up a holistic employee engagement analytics program. And if your business already has two or three of these ingredients in the engagement mix, you’re on the right track!

As a people leader, you’re aware that in today’s world, employees are demanding better feedback channels. Whether you’re a small business or a massive enterprise, there is monumental value in collecting feedback from employees at the moments that matter.

You may be wondering what these crucial moments are. We’ve broken down the five ingredients that make up a holistic employee engagement analytics program. And if your business already has two or three of these ingredients in the engagement mix, you’re on the right track!

Ultimately, providing your employees with these channels, will allow you to tap into the full potential of your people data. And being armed with this data, leadership teams and HR can make more informed decisions regarding their people.

#1 – The Engagement Baseline Survey (Ad hoc Snapshot)

Think of the Engagement Baseline survey as the “annual survey”. Most companies run this anywhere from one to four times per year now. This is your opportunity to get a full health check on engagement at your company. Engagement baselines allow you to identify hot spots, or trending engagement issues that could become troublesome if not quickly addressed. 

Baseline surveys also are great for providing snapshots of what engagement looks like over time. If you’re asking the same questions on each Engagement Baseline, with statistical validity, you can start to tell a story (great trend data) about the different actions and events that either had a positive or negative impact on your engagement scores. 

All-in-all, if you could only choose one feedback channel at your company, this would be your go-to.

#2 – Employee Lifecycle Surveys

Measure the critical moments throughout the employee lifecycle at your organization. Depending on your business, select moments are going to be more important to you than others. 

Here’s what that could look like at your organization:

• Candidate surveys to measure the candidate experience
• New hire surveys to ensure that employees are ramping up within the first 90 days of employment
• Role-change/Promotion surveys to make sure that employees are happy with their new roles and what could have been improved during their transition
• Exit Surveys to gather insights on why employees are leaving, to ultimately, retain top performers

If you have a strategy in place for capturing feedback during these crucial moments, your business will have a better understanding of where the employee experience dips. 

#3 – Pulse Surveys

Having a regular cadence for collecting feedback will help set expectations with your people on when they should expect to receive surveys. 

With regularly scheduled, quick pulse surveys, you can put predictive analytics to work. These pulse measurements allow for real-time feedback so that organizations can tackle problems quickly.

Pulse surveys are always on and adding value. This is a set it and forget it approach to capturing data over time. Obviously, you’ll need to choose a cadence that works best for your business. While some businesses send out weekly pulse surveys, others choose to send these out on a quarterly cadence. Again, you’ll have to set a schedule that works best for your organization. 

Here’s what a typical pulse survey looks like:

• eNPS Question – How likely are you to recommend COMPANY NAME as a place to work? (Rate 0-10 where 10 is the highest)
• Retention Question – I can see myself working at COMPANY NAME for the next: Options:  0-6 months, 6-12 months, 1 year – 2 years, 2 years – 4 years and 4 years +
• Qualitative Question – What one thing would you improve about working at COMPANY NAME?

Bottom line – the more data that your organization collects, the more you can start to trend data over time and the more you can feed your predictive analytics engine for later on.

#4 – Growth & Development Surveys

We’ve all heard the old cliché, “people don’t quit their jobs, they quit their manager”. There is some valid truth to this, however it needs to be expanded upon. In reality, people quit because their managers are not investing in them, nor giving them challenging and meaningful work.

The growth and development of your employees is one of the most critical links to their effectiveness and engagement. 

For adequate feedback on the growth and development of your people, feedback cycles should be short, direct, and timely. These surveys exist as a combination of triggered and scheduled surveys.

Triggered surveys occur after certain events such as work anniversaries, promotions or role changes that have occured. Getting feedback from both the employee and their manager at these inflection points will ensure that people are getting the most out of their work experience.

You can also schedule feedback cycles such as 360 feedback surveys, performance reviews and team effectiveness surveys to go out on set dates throughout the year. 

Integrating both triggered and scheduled cycles will help your teams grow quickly through real-time feedback systems.

#5 Always on Feedback 

The modern employee is demanding the ability to push unsolicited, anonymous feedback to their organization on their own terms. 

Always on feedback channels drive important conversations within organizations by:

• providing details around unethical behavior: sexual harassment, financial misconduct, workplace bullying, etc.
• submitting anonymous questions surrounding sensitive topics
• suggesting process and system improvements
• recognizing peers for their great work

Making on-demand, always-on channels available to your people will allow you to close the loop on any urgent employee concerns. Not only will this build trust within your organization, but help to avoid costly issues and external reviews on sites like Glassdoor.

Conclusion

The perfect place to work does not exist. Every organization will face challenges and speed bumps on the road to becoming more people-centric. However, ignoring or putting off these issues cannot be accepted if you hope to foster a place where employees want to be. By adhering to these 5 Ingredients of an employee engagement analytics program, you can start down the path toward success, growth, and happiness within your organization.