WHY MACORVA
Unfortunately, low engagement is common, impacting two out of three employees, according to research by Gallup. When you’re faced with the problem of low engagement, employee feedback is a highly reliable solution; it helps you understand why good people have left the company, why others lack enthusiasm, and why the performance of certain teams is beginning to suffer.
Leveraging employee feedback isn’t as simple as administering an off-the-shelf Internet engagement survey. In fact, a “quick fix” survey could do more harm than good. Employee engagement is full of nuance; what works for one company may actually hurt engagement someplace else. Overly broad, uncustomizable surveys won’t extract the detailed information unique to your organization needed to boost engagement. Furthermore, even the simplest online surveys will take time for your employees to complete. It’s essential to ensure their time and effort is rewarded with meaningful action.
Every employee engagement survey is an investment- even “free” Internet surveys take valuable time and resources to implement and interpret. You’ll be successful in maximizing your ROI when pursuing complete solutions that offer the insight needed to enact meaningful change. Here are four reasons why:
To Empower Employees
Research has found that empowering employees builds trust, a key ingredient in driving employee engagement. A set of canned employee engagement questions can’t help you build trust because the questions don’t empower employees; they’re too narrow, and they limit responses to the preset topics of the survey. That kind of survey doesn’t allow you to capture feedback that falls outside the scope of the questions.
On the other hand, employee engagement software transforms the employee survey into a tool that empowers employees. It allows them to share more of the work experiences that impact their engagement. By giving employees a way to have their voices heard, you’re also giving them more autonomy in the workplace. Employee engagement software empowers employees by:
- Allowing each employee to rate their experiences with coworkers throughout the organization
- Providing space for employees to add free-form feedback
- Giving each employee their own feedback reports to help them learn from the experiences of others
To Receive Actionable Insight
Engagement software does more than measure and track engagement; it offers insight that helps you take action on team leadership, individual development, and the structure of different parts of the business. For example, feedback on employees’ experiences with a particular manager can start a conversation about training and coaching that will help that manager become more effective.
Employee dynamics also deliver insight into how individuals on different teams work together, highlighting opportunities for greater communication and collaboration. A survey downloaded from the internet doesn’t deliver actionable insight because it only reports on employee feedback across a limited number of dimensions and won’t deliver useful feedback to employees.
To Support Employee and Leader Development
According to Gallup research, managers account for 70 percent of the variance in employee engagement. Given the managers’ important role in driving engagement, it makes sense to use an employee engagement tool that builds leader effectiveness rather than merely assessing it at the surface level
An Internet survey offers no reliable way to help people develop their skill sets, which can leave employees feeling criticized, misunderstood, or dejected. . However, engagement software can deliver 360-degree feedback to every employee (link to Macorva), which can be used as the foundation for more fruitful one-to-ones and career development discussions. For example, team leaders who are rated highly by their managers but not by their direct reports can benefit from coaching that helps them manage down and across as well as they manage up.
To Gain Better Visibility Throughout the Organization
A typical engagement survey provides aggregate feedback data, but employee engagement software leverages that data to provide leaders with greater visibility into every level of the company.
By combining 360-degree feedback with survey data, engagement software allows company leaders to see where all the high-potential workers and superstars exist, even within a larger organization. Engagement software shines a light on employee standouts, allowing them to be recognized for their contributions. With this improved visibility, company leaders and frontline managers can take a more proactive approach to managing the workforce and retaining top talent.
Employee engagement software delivers the insight necessary to address the effects of low engagement, such as high turnover and poor performance. It empowers employees, delivers feedback to every employee, and allows you to zero in on employee standouts. Unlike a generic survey, employee engagement software enables you to make the investments in the workplace that drive engagement.
