We all know what employee engagement is. Or do we?
There are endless definitions of employee engagement out there. So, how do we pick one?
Well, you could aim for the “best”, but that’s about as clear as mud. What does “best” even mean in this context?
Maybe you’re better off settling for “good enough” – something that fits your organisation and circumstances reasonably well. (Just remember, both of these are likely to change over time!)
So you try on a few definitions for size, find a decent fit, and construct your engagement survey based on it. You come up with a list of factors to measure, which turns into a longer list of questions covering pretty much everything under the sun. Because hey, you wouldn’t want to leave anything out, right?
Except… that’s all wrong.
Here’s the problem: you’re not getting to what matters. Your typical survey might have 60-80 questions, often asking several about each factor. That’s essentially like conducting 60-80 separate one-question surveys – quite overwhelming, isn’t it?
You can add up the scores for each factor, sure, but you can’t compare them meaningfully unless you’ve asked the same questions for each one. (Spoiler alert: you haven’t, because the questions are specific to the factors.)
Without this comparison, you’re stuck. You don’t know which factor should be your top priority, so you’re missing crucial info for your action plan.
With employee engagement as with suits, you might think you’ve found a good fit off the rack, but you have no idea what you’re missing until you get something custom tailored. When each part of your suit fits each part of your body, that’s the difference that creates a perfect fit.
Here’s how to tailor your sharpest employee engagement survey ever:
- Start with a brief list of factors that affect your employees’ working lives. Don’t go overboard with questions at this stage – you don’t know what’s important yet.
- Ask employees just two questions about each factor: “How important is this to you?” and “How satisfied are you with this?” Now you can compare factors meaningfully.
- Once you know what matters most and needs improvement, you can start asking more focused questions about those areas. The extra oomph Mint66 adds here is that we focus not just the questions but the audience too. We can restrict subsidiary questions to only those with an interest in answering them. It’s a double win!
By asking employees to rate the importance of these factors, you’re essentially crowdsourcing the second part of your engagement definition. And here’s the clever bit: because we can filter audiences by their views, you’re getting insights that are tailored to specific groups within your organisation, not just a one-size-fits-all approach.
That’s the difference that makes the suit fit perfectly. And in the world of employee engagement, that perfect fit can make all the difference.
Ready to ditch the one-size-fits-all approach and get a tailor-made solution for your employee engagement? Give Mint66 a shout. We’ll help you craft a survey that fits your organisation like a Savile Row suit.
