US Employee Engagement Numbers Drop - Indicating More Issues for Employers in 2022-23
Gallup’s latest early 2022 Employee Engagement Survey indicates another decrease in engagement and an increase in disengagement over the last two years.
This data creates concern for Chief People Officers and organization leaders as we move into another year of social and political unrest and economic challenges that have plagued the country over the last two years.
Leadership Evolution Group’s Chief People Officer, Amy Riccardi suggests, “It is imperative that organizations make this a core part of their business processes in order to keep top talent, reduce the myriad factors at play in today’s war for your talent, and to beat the disengagement statistics that are not working in the employer’s favor.”
With U.S. engagement numbers down 2% this year and actively disengaged employee numbers up 2% so far in 2022 - employers are fighting issues on just about every front right now. Leaders have to plug holes in culture, leadership, management, re-defining work, roles, and expectations… frankly, everything is up for grabs on the people-side right now.
When organizations decide to conduct employee engagement surveys, most leaders are looking in the rearview mirror. After the survey is conducted, it takes too long to analyze the data and meet to talk about it, then meet again to talk about what to do about it, then make a plan to address the data - a quarter has gone by and employees have no clue what the results were and no plan has taken shape to address the engagement issues from the survey. It’s frustrating for everyone.
Riccardi advises, to focus on two things:
How are you going to use this data and report out to executives, leaders, managers, and employees (and how fast can you do this)
How often can you comfortably collect data to look at trends over time - You want to gather no sooner than every 90-days but no longer than every 4 months. Ideally, 3-4 times a year - and you don’t want the survey to take more than 5-10 minutes to complete otherwise you will see survey burnout.
FREQUENCY TIP - Pre-pandemic, we liked to do engagement surveys every quarter for the first year then move to every 4 months after that. We’ve found that cadence to work for most clients. Post-pandemic we are finding that every quarter is best for a number of reasons. Employees want to stay connected and provide the feedback, most employees are remote or hybrid so you need to stay on top of engagement data, and leaders need to be course correcting through these changes on a frequent basis. Plus it helps stay connected with employees in a more meaningful way.
POST-PANDEMIC BEST PRACTICE - Setting up a quarterly pulsing business process is our best recommendation through 2023 for best results.
PARTICIPATION RATE: Our goal is to have at least 85% participation in the survey - and that’s pretty easy to do when you share the data in a timely and meaningful way with employees. Our clients generally see those numbers drop off if they take too long to release the data - even one time dragging their feet will lower the participation rates so it’s important to commit to timely release of the numbers - even if they are not favorable.
OUR PREFERRED TOOL: We have looked at a lot of different engagement tools over the years and made a decision to recommend one tool to our clients for a number of reasons. It’s an elegantly simple yet robust tool with an easy setup process, the ability to customize questions or use their proven out-of-the-box questions, elegant results dashboards for leaders, managers, and employees that are contextualized for their roles, and great tools for leaders and managers to help guide them through affirming engagement strengths or identifying and addressing issues and creating action plans and solutions on a 90-day cycle. PLUS, they have other survey questions for DEI, remote work, etc. that you can either add into your existing surveys or offer separately that add value - at no extra cost….and they offer it for an annual, firm-fixed price fee per employee with no hidden fees or add-ins - so budgeting is super easy.
To test the survey tool with your organization for free just visit our engagement page or if you have questions you can schedule a complimentary call with us here. 86% of our clients who utilize the free trial go on to purchase the tool, it’s that good!