Year: 2016

The 5 key factors of employee engagement

In addition to employee satisfaction employee engagement plays an important role in every organisation. In fact, engaged employees are up to 43% more productive. In addition, these employees are more loyal which makes them less likely to leave the organisation and think further than the average employee. Thanks to employee engagement, organisations' competitive edge can grow.

Employee engagement definition

An engaged employee exhibits positive behaviour towards the organisation and its values. This commitment strongly determines employees' motivation, enthusiasm, high spirits and emotional attachment. As a result, engaged employees are more likely to go the extra mile when needed. This shows that engaged employees are more aware of the context of the organisation and work with colleagues to improve individual performance, for the benefit of the organisation. This results in higher productivity and less unwanted staff turnover.

Factors for engagement

As shown above, higher employee engagement drives better performance. So how can this engagement best be encouraged? Here is a list of the most important factors:

1. Perception of importance work

When employees recognise that their work content and organisation have impact to the environment, this will lead to higher involvement. Therefore, it is important that employees maintain a good relationship with the final product being created.

2. Expectations function

Without a clear objective or proper resources, employees are more focused on "survival" than looking at adding value in the organisation.

3. Development opportunities

At both individual and departmental levels, at least the perception of influence on improvement is important. If these decisions are taken outside employees, employee engagement will decrease.

4. Feedback and dialogue

Employees sometimes simply want to hear that they have done something well. Sometimes this is not tangible, which is why a compliment like "Thank you, looks good!" is is important.

5. Inspiring leadership

Without clear values or a vision, it is very difficult to engage employees in the organisational interest.

Evidently, sometimes behavioural change is needed to get more involvement to create, and that takes time. Often this change is about communication between departments and employees. Sometimes managers are unaware that they forget to compliment or dialogue. Awareness is therefore perhaps even more important than the actual involvement itself.

Literature

Bockerman, Petri; Ilmakunnas, Pekka (2012). "The Job Satisfaction-productivity Nexus: A Study Using Matched Survey and Register Data". Industrial and Labor Relations Review. 65 (2): 244-262.

Crim, Dan; Gerard H. Seijts (2006). "What Engages Employees the Most or, The Ten Cs of Employee Engagement".. Ivey Business Journal. Retrieved 2013-01-24.

10 smart tips to increase employee satisfaction

To achieve competitive advantage, high employee satisfaction is a must. Not only are satisfied employees more productive but this also delivers higher customer satisfaction up. But how do you make sure employees are satisfied? And more importantly, how do employees stay happy? This article describes key tips for achieving employee satisfaction.

1. Value employees

It may sound a little cliché but satisfaction starts with expressing appreciation to employees. Appreciate and reward (extra) effort. Showing appreciation to employees is important for maintaining motivation and satisfaction. When employees put in extra effort, it is important that this effort is recognised and acknowledged.

2. Motivate mutual bonding

Healthy relationships between employees and colleagues are essential for an employee. This creates a stronger sense of shared responsibility for the department. To achieve this, it makes sense to schedule structural group activities such as get-togethers, dinners, celebrating birthdays and weekends away.

3. Support a healthy work-life balance

Challenge employees sufficiently but do not make sure they are completely left to their own devices. Offer opportunities to critically examine flexible work arrangements, working from home and stress management.

4. Appoint the right leaders

Ensure that employees are paired with suitable managers. For example, when there are many new employees, they should, for both development and satisfaction, be able to make mistakes. Assigning a leader who does not allow this will not easily motivate employees so friction will quickly arise between them.

5. Make work content flexible

Offer scope to make work more interesting/complex so that employees remain sufficiently challenged. Challenging work has been shown to contribute to job satisfaction. It is important to take employees' work-life balance into account (point 3.).

6. Give an attractive salary

Employees' basic salary should be a logical consequence of the work they do. Also ensure sufficient perspective by building up the salary in scales.

7. Give job security

Let job security depend as much as possible on the employee's performance. This supports the perception of job security and thus psychological security.

8. Support development

Offer employees sufficient space to develop. This can be both on-the-job and off-the-job with coaching and training opportunities. This ensures future prospects within the organisation, increasing overall satisfaction.

9. Lead by example

When specific behaviours are required of employees, it is important that management applies these behaviours themselves. This creates more support and gives employees room to learn from their examples. "Practice what you preach" is the most important motto here.

10. Employer branding

Employees want to be proud to tell family and friends that they work for their organisation. Therefore, it is important that the employer is known as a "good employer" where employees enjoy themselves. The ultimate goal is for all (former) employees to be ambassadors of the organisation.

As shown above, employee satisfaction is complex and not achievable overnight. Confidence will only increase when areas for improvement are heard and translated into specific actions. If this is done successfully, it leads not only to higher satisfaction but also to competitive advantage.

7 accessible tips to increase response rate

The number of respondents is crucial to the success of a employee survey. This is because a low response rate ensures that the data is not a good reflection of the real thing. As a result, without enough participants, the outcomes will be taken less seriously. When few employees respond, it means that the added value of the survey is greatly reduced. These tips will therefore help you increase your response rate for the next survey.

Definition response rate

The response rate is the number of unique completed questionnaires divided by the number of people invited (respondents). Usually, this number is expressed as a percentage. For example: If 600 employees are invited and 550 actually complete the questionnaire, the response rate is 91.6%.

1. Ensuring anonymity

For both a higher response rate and valuable input, anonymity for employees is important. When the anonymity of a questionnaire is guaranteed, employees will be candid in their answers. For answering questions about managers and cooperation with other employees, perception of anonymity is particularly important. Especially when trust is already an issue within the organisation, there will be more need to confirm employees' anonymity.

2. Clear objective

In any communication, explain the purpose of the questionnaire. Tell what the benefits for the organisation are and what the employee gains from it. This will create support and employees will also encourage others to fill in the questionnaire.

3. Follow-up steps

Show what the next steps are after data collection. Make it clear when the results will be shared with employees. Tell what the follow-up steps are after the data is collected. What will be done to translate the results into improvements? When this is transparent, employees gain insight into the entire process. This leads to greater support and, as a result, a higher response rate.

4. Management support

Involving executives in inviting employees can boost the response rate. When the survey is supported from the top it shows that they are involved in the survey. It can therefore be smart to have the responsible manager or board member sign the invitation. It is even better to send the survey entirely from the board.

5. Compact questionnaire

Longer questionnaires have a lower response rate. It is important to estimate in advance how long it will take to complete the questionnaire. This allows employees to know how much time they should set aside for the survey. As a rule, it is better to finish earlier than to take longer than expected. If the questionnaire is relatively long then it is good to allow employees to complete it in parts. This limits the impact on workload.

6. Timing and deadlines

Make sure that you think carefully about when to launch the questionnaire and that the deadline is achievable for employees. After all, it can be frustrating when the workload is high and then employees are expected to complete the questionnaire within a few days.

7. Meeting commitments

For follow-up research in particular, adherence to planning is essential. When communicating to staff, let them know what has been promised and make it clear what the results will be. Should certain deadlines ultimately not be feasible, communicate this in good time.

What is a good response rate?

This depends on the type of survey but usually a response rate above 70% is good. If you achieve a rate below 60% then it is smart to go through the suggestions above.

Also make sure you have the right engineering behind the survey. When it is easy to fill in the questionnaire, employees can complete it faster.

The above points are the important ones to achieve a higher response rate. Employee survey is, however, highly dependent on the context in which it is applied. Therefore, it is important to think carefully beforehand which points might be crucial for your organisation. Just remember that there are always areas for improvement as every research has its limitations.

What is employee satisfaction? And what is its impact?

Employee satisfaction or job satisfaction shows the extent to which employees are satisfied with their jobs within the organisation. Employee satisfaction is usually made tangible by using satisfaction questionnaires. These questionnaires often contain questions or statements around the work itself (job content), conditions in which a person works (working conditions), relationship with supervisor(s) and colleagues (labour relations) and the method of compensation (terms of employment).

The above issues are important to understand the satisfaction of employees. This allows organisations to respond in a timely manner to any dissatisfaction within teams or departments, for example. After all, dissatisfaction can be unwanted staff turnover push back.

However, employee satisfaction is just one component that makes employees truly happy, effective and loyal. For some organisations, employee satisfaction is actually secondary to true loyalty to the organisation.

Therefore, a distinction is often made between employee satisfaction and employee engagement. It is not always clear what the difference between these concepts is. As a result, they are regularly used interchangeably. In any case, it is a good start to state that employee satisfaction creates the most important conditions and is therefore often used in employee survey is put in as a concept. This only says, for example, to a limited extent whether someone is proud to work for the organisation or whether the employee can identify with the organisation's core values.

Difference between employee satisfaction and employee engagement

Both concepts are therefore important to get a complete picture. Therefore, they are explained below.

Definition employee satisfaction

Employee satisfaction is the extent to which employees are happy and content with their work and associated environment. A satisfied employee is less likely to leave the organisation voluntarily.

Employee engagement definition

Employee engagement refers to the extent to which employees are engaged with their work and the organisation. An engaged employee tends to take extra steps when needed.

If this distinction is made properly, it is possible to distinguish motivated employees from those who are only satisfied in their current role. With this distinction, it is possible to look at why employees are less engaged. With the identify of reasons, barriers to achieving engagement can be removed. This ensures that departments, divisions and/or teams can become more effective.

How do you deal with negative results from employee surveys?

The main objective of employee survey is often to identify areas for improvement within the organisation. But when the results are negative, it is tempting for managers to do nothing, or worse: to pretend the results are wrong. Taking no action after employee survey therefore often leads to a more negative situation than before the questionnaire was distributed.

To avoid this, it is important to actually take action after the investigation. But how do you go about this? Below, 7 steps explain how best to deal with negative results.

Step 1: Acknowledge areas for improvement

Don't hide the results that came out of the questionnaire. Not even when they show high levels of dissatisfaction. Keeping the results away can actually increase dissatisfaction further and even lead to mistrust. Always share results with employees in a way that highlights both the positive and negative results. Acknowledge that there are areas for improvement to work on and ensure that the initial follow-up steps be clearly communicated.

Step 2: Select focal points

Make sure you make a good selection within the improvement points put forward. This is because the pitfall is to tackle all problems at once. This is often not realistic. Indeed, tackling points for improvement puts extra pressure on involved employees and especially the managers. Therefore, select a few focal points to work on. Depending on the results, departments can work on their own challenges.

Step 3: Clarify the problem

It is not only important to be clear what problems will be addressed. Also clarify exactly what "the problem" means. For example, suppose the employee survey showed that communication between departments is an area for improvement. What does this mean in concrete terms? Is it about the amount of communication or is there something lacking in content? Ask employees within relevant departments about what is not going well to create clarity.

Step 4: Brainstorming

Organise a series of brainstorming sessions focusing on ideas for improvement. It is important here that input from previously collected results is also used (anonymously). Also ensure that not only employees but also managers attend the sessions. This leads to greater support and, as a result, greater impact.

Step 5: Set goals

After the brainstorming session, it is time to turn the best ideas into actions. Here, it is important to make concrete what exactly needs to be achieved and who is responsible for this. Formulate clear objectives and milestones to motivate those involved. It is important that all employees and managers agree to both the objectives and milestones.

Step 6: Evaluate

Make time to discuss progress in the interim. When the goals have been achieved, this is usually a good time to re-run the questionnaire. This way, it becomes clear what the impact of the improvement actions has been and whether changes have actually taken place.

Step 7: Continue

The process does not stop after another measurement. Maybe for now all goals have been achieved, but there is always a new challenge. This ensures that you are never quite done.

Employee survey is often a good tool to measure satisfaction and engagement within organisations. However, without follow-up, questionnaires are actually useless and can even lead to lower employee satisfaction. Negative feedback can be annoying but the best response is a clear action plan devised by concerned employees and managers. As a result, the employee engagement not only measured but actually improved.