Employee Engagement and Employee Surveys

Employee engagement is all about how your staff members feel about their jobs, the work they do, and your organization. It’s their level of commitment to their work and to the company and leaders they work for. Therefore, when it comes to employee engagement, companies have to employ an internal communications plan that is all about ensuring that staff members truly feel like they belong and that they are valued and appreciated.

An effective internal communication platform to enhance employee engagement is the employee survey. Not only are you able to gather information regarding how staff members feel about their work and the organization, employee surveys give you the ability to improve communication lines as well as recognize what needs to be done to gain success as a company.

Here are the five main reasons why conducting employee surveys should be administered as part of your internal communication plan:

1. Employee surveys help you measure how engaged your employees are to their work and to the organization.

Coming up with questions that aid in revealing truthful and helpful answers from employees helps you better understand what you can do to improve their work experience. There are no set standards when it comes to drivers that measure engagement, however, some of the most common factors asses include salaries and benefits, potential for advancement, leadership opportunities, recognition, work culture and environment, job role and description, and training opportunities.

2. Employee surveys give staff members a voice.

While it may be difficult for employees to talk with their managers about their issues regarding work culture and processes, surveys are good avenues to give them a voice without the hovering fear of getting reprimanded and fired.

Usually answered anonymously, employee surveys allow for an open dialogue between employer, leaders and employees. It is an opportunity to involve staff members in the company’s development process and success. Employee surveys make employees feel like they are truly part of the planning process, and that their ideas, insights and opinions are valued and appreciated.

3. Utilizing employee surveys in your internal communications strategy immediately increases employee engagement.

Just the fact that you have included employee surveys in your internal communications immediately makes your employees feel more involved, and thus, more engaged.

The information you gather from the employee survey will aid you in identifying the strengths of your business and the opportunities you need to seek in order to improve your chances for success. Aside from being able to change things for the better, you can choose which areas of the business you need to prioritize, determine the resources you need, and consequently implement a schedule to make changes and improvements.

4. Employee surveys give you an insight into each department.

If one department scores high when it comes to employee engagement, an employee survey can help you determine the practices they implement in order to achieve it. After making the determination, you are then able to create an action plan for the other departments in your company based on what you’ve learned.

5. Employee surveys allow you to benchmark results.

Being able to benchmark the data gathered from employee surveys, results in an easier and quicker comparison between different departments and teams, as well as other industry-specific data. Comparisons such as these will enable you to compare your company progress with others.

Benchmarking also helps in identifying whether the issues being brought up in your employee survey occur in your industry or is specific to your organization alone. For example, if you find out that only 25% of your employees are satisfied with their wages, you can compare the results of other businesses in order to see if the complaint is industry-wide.