When I created my company, Wright Results, I made hundreds of phone calls every week. And I counted them. I kept intricate metrics like
- # dials
- # connects
- # appointments
- # contracts
- and more, many more
And I loved those records. It was great knowing I'd averaged 137 calls between Tuesday and Thursday in March.
But why? The number of contracts I closed, relative to the number of
calls made, was significant. But making more calls didn't seem the only
(or the best) way to land more contracts.
So it is, I think, with measuring your employee engagement level. Knowing how much of it you have, like how many phone calls I made, may be important. But there are three suggestions for you to keep in mind.
First, you might check the previous posting that explores how and why employee engagement is not the final result you should be seeking.
Now for those those three keep-in-minds:
Don't make measuring the be-all and end-all.
Keeping score of some portion of what we're about can make us elevate that portion's to greater importance than it deserves. Employee engagement is important, but it's only important in how (much) it helps achieve results. If your employees think a high score on the employee engagement survey is their #1 objective, the real objectives (like, patient satisfaction?) may indirectly suffer.
Use the metrics to help you achieve meaningful results.
You want the metrics to provide information you can use as tools to help you and your people make their engagement matter. Suppose you want to increase employee engagement for the purpose of making your workplace attractive to personnel candidates. You want to use specifics from your metrics to create actual ways to increase that engagement. E-mail (tim@wrightresults.com) me if you want some how-to examples.
Keep your measurement device fresh.
Your survey is a lens through which you view your employee engagement. Having you have your eyes examined annually (or should), you want to update your EE measurement tool as well. As your employees' engagement changes, increases, improves, the information you want, and so the questions you will want answered, changes also. Be certain what you want to know remains relevant (and valuable) to your EESQ (as in, Employee Engagement Status Quo).
Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/darwinbell/2422933100/in/set-72157602239478598/
A great companion post to why EE is not the end result, Tim. Similar to what I commented on that post, measurement and metrics is also important in strategic recognition — a tool for achieving increased employee engagement — but it is not the end goal. However, just as you say metrics give you information you can use, the same is true in strategic metrics built into recognition programs. For example, we strongly encourage companies to use their company values as the “reasons” for recognition when acknowledging another person. This then allows measurement of values adoption and understanding throughout a company — truly the only way to take the values off a plaque on the wall and bring them to life. Not only do employees come to understand what “integrity,” for example, may look like in a daily act, but then executives can see which divisions do not track well for “integrity” and intervene as necessary.
Another insightful post, Tim. Thank you.
Comment by Derek Irvine — September 5, 2008 @ 1:57 pm