Align your Employee Engagement Surveys with your company vision?

Pro tip: Define your vision even prior to entering the procurement process for employee engagement software. Put it on a piece of paper, and rank potential solutions by how well they fit your company culture and your needs. If this is too vague, I have a specific example: If your company's value is well-being, you will want to survey it weekly. The default setting of Heartcount is to survey well-being weekly, and our clients choose us because we align with their core values.

Having a clear, documented vision and value statement should be a fundamental step. Once you've defined who / what you want to be, it can be a critical tool that can be used as a litmus test to all your decisions including hiring and day to day customer experiences. Lastly, it can also be used as personal development when measuring an employees actions against the overall value & vision statement of the business.

Start by clearly articulating your company's vision, which includes the core values, goals, and aspirations. This vision should serve as a guiding principle for your organization.

Some insights on how to define and communicate a company's vision and values, which I find useful for significantly enhancing employee engagement include implementing an essential strategy that begins with the direct involvement of key stakeholders. This involvement should encompass employees at various levels, who can act as ambassadors for the company's values, perspectives, and insights. Leaders have a primary role in demonstrating and embodying the company's values through their actions and decisions and combining this with the establishment of metrics to measure integration and regularly assessing employee engagement can lead to continuous improvement in employee engagement.

Vision is very tough to measure through surveys, so mission can be considered and organisations shoudl break their vision and mission into yearly goals and start asking questions if as an organisation are we achieveing them. Many cannot think if what they are doing is aligned to their vision, so break your vision into yearly statements and how they are linked, create aweareness and then put them as part of engagement survey.

Having a clear vision, mission and values acts as a Lighthouse for all the processes, practices, culture, and organization-building endeavors. Without knowing what we are eyeing, make the employee engagement survey loose its steam and purpose.

Sometimes you can even use the engagement survey to identify which are the areas you need to develop sooner than later. Even if you haven´t set your vision, something I feel it´s the very first thing any team or company should do, asking for it on the survey will give you back a hint on how are things moving in your company or team.

As a communication professional turned employee engagement consultant, I would also recommend: 1. Reiterating your company's purpose, mission and values on a regular basis 2. Helping stakeholders connect the dots between how your purpose, vision and values form the basis and the big "why" of the survey through robust engagement and Q&A sessions before actual work of designing the survey begins 3. Working closely with your software vendor and external consultants to ensure they are on the same page and understand your purpose, mission and vision as intimately as you do.

There's a lot to unpack in the word 'vision'! I like to think of it as a pyramid: Purpose - why do you exist? Ambition - where are you headed? Strategy - how are you going to get there as a business? People strategy - how can your employees enable your business strategy? What are the perceptions and behaviours they need to exhibit? Listening strategy - what metrics (hard, soft) will allow you to evidence those perceptions and behaviours, and what methods will you need to use to measure them? Once you have all that, you will be a lot closer to defining an approach to employee experience that matches your overall corporate vision.

Let's be honest, defining a vision for a company is HARD work So how about this: Have a DRAFT vision. Your best guess at the moment. Don't let trying to create the perfect statement STALL you. Then do your survey. And learn from that

Develop survey questions that directly link to your key metrics. These questions should assess how well employees embody and understand the company vision and core values while gauging their level of engagement and satisfaction.

Pro tip: Gaming companies use industry slang to improve the response rate of surveys. Our clients from gaming are very specific. We were very intrigued to learn they like to modify their surveys so they reflect the way people in the industry talk. They claim it improves the response rate by gamifying the experience. So, not only should your questions be purposeful, but they should follow the lingo your employees use day to day to get them to relax and reply honestly. Or at all. :)

Aligning your questions according to the vision of the company by first understanding the vision of the company and that can vary from company to company and the vision should not just be profit oriented it should also include employee perks, benefits and their satisfaction.

Survey questions don't have to be completely transparent. For example: Our goal is X. The question says X. That's not overtly interesting from a research perspective. Rather, search for both leading and lagging indicators of X. Design questions that predict and show the impact of strategy.

The survey questions need to be aligned with - A. Employee Value Preposition (EVP) of the organization. B. Key competencies and associated behaviors C. Focus areas / key drivers of the organization. D. Strategic plan of the organization. e.g. - If you are a fast-growing organization, you may like to ask the question - What would you define as top focus areas for the organization to make it future ready. Survey questions need to have a good balance of open-ended and close-ended questions.

This can be a little bit of a catch-22. It can be difficult to include questions around engagement drivers, if you don't know what they are. A well-designed engagement survey will help you identify those key drivers so you might need to start with a broad survey and use that to diagnose the key engagement issues.

Your company vision should be the guiding light for all initiatives, including employee engagement surveys. Make sure the questions reflect the values and goals outlined in your vision, ensuring alignment between employee feedback and the overall direction of the organization.

Pro tip: Analyze the qualitative feedback too, not just the standardized scaled questions. Our clients report they find a gold mine of data in the last part of the weekly survey - the "Anything you would like to add" section. Many suggestions ranging from flexible working hours, new branded mugs, gifts, and anonymous reporting on illicit activities have been gathered and processed by paying attention to qualitative data too. Remember, gathering data makes sense only if it results in action.

Once the survey responses are gathered, analyze the data to isolate areas that require improvement or alignment with the company vision. Identify trends and patterns to understand the overall employee sentiment and engagement levels.

In addition to the above points, analysis of the results also needs to be on different dimensions - age, hierarchy, business group, function, gender, geography etc. Looking at various data cuts qualitatively and quantitatively, one must arrive at an considerable outcome. If there was any survey done in the past, comparison with the past results also helps in understanding the needle-shifting trends/behaviors/ dimensions and gives a good reflection of the success of employee engagement / OD endeavors implemented.

Pro tip: Company-wide communication of action taken on suggestions does wonders for morale and future response rate. Some of our clients started out with average response rates, but their committed HR team increased them by communicating the findings along with the next steps for improvement with employees. They introduced public praise for people who were proactive and motivated the rest to join in. As a result, they have seen a steady increase in response rate. Remember, the employee engagement software works when we take action on the data we gathered, and make sure everyone knows it. :) Transparency is key.

Clearly communicate the survey findings, action plans, and expected changes to all employees. Ensure they understand how their feedback influenced the decision-making process. Involve employees in the implementation of changes to foster a sense of ownership and engagement.

Survey findings - good or bad, must be shared with the last employee in the hierarchy. Employee's views must be taken into consideration for the course correction/action planning. This not only builds transparency but also the joint ownership of the results and affects the success of future action plan as well.

Survey results should be shared with all and look to the leadership team for any shortcomings. Questions to ask first are: - Did leadership do a good job sharing the vision - Did Leadership live the vision through actions - Has Leadership set the team to fail or succeed - What are the next steps in elevating, collaboratively If you want to continue to receive factual constructive feedback, there should never be punitive actions and everyone should own their culpability.

Pro tip: Once you start using employee engagement software it is a very bad signal to stop using it! In some cases, we have seen that companies stop using the software. Every time, it was because roles were not assigned. It was teamwork to handle it, so nobody felt responsible per se. If you start using employee engagement software, make sure you are assigning accountability for it too. Otherwise, you will stop using it and your people will see it as a sign that you tried to care and then changed your mind. Do I even need to explain why this is not good?

This is the most important step of all above. Should you do nothing with the answers, you´d better never ever ask again. Even if you can´t do anything regarding the answers, just say so to your teams. Saying "We can´t face this now" or "we´re not ready to go for it so far" is doing something. You´ll be saying your people their opinions are useful, that you value them and that you´ve studied them but you´re not ready to go for it.

Action Plan needs to be clearly defined into short-term, mid-term and long-term goals along with a clear responsibility matrix and timelines. Management needs to prioritize the periodic Action Plan review to ensure the success of the Action Plan in alignment with the organization's vision, mission/values and reap the long-term benefit out of it.

Purposeful Questions: Craft survey questions that directly assess alignment with the organization's vision and values. Communication Clarity: Clearly explain to employees how their feedback contributes to realizing the organization's vision. Leadership Involvement: Involve leaders to highlight the importance of vision alignment and connect it to daily work. Action-Oriented Insights: Analyze survey results to identify gaps, and create action plans to enhance alignment. Continuous Reinforcement: Develop ongoing initiatives that reinforce the vision, supported by recognition and rewards. Adaptive Strategy: Regularly conduct surveys to track progress, adapting strategies based on evolving feedback and organizational shifts.

Conduct the employee engagement survey regularly to assess progress and measure the impact of the implemented changes. This ongoing feedback loop is vital to maintain alignment with your company vision and continuously improve employee engagement. By aligning your employee engagement survey with your company vision, you can create a more engaged and committed workforce, leading to increased productivity, innovation, and overall success for your organization.

You should be aware what an Engagement Survey is meant for. If you try to ask about everything on the survey, most of your employees will get tired and the quality of the answers will decrease. It´s worth, as an advice from experience, to use two or three different surveys in every different quarter, reduce the number of questions and have a clear and specific goal with each of them

Aligning your Employee Engagement Surveys with your company vision ensures that feedback directly contributes to realizing organizational goals, fostering a purpose-driven culture. Leveraging AI and the LinkedIn community enhances data insights, enabling dynamic alignment and continual improvement in employee satisfaction and performance.