Are Your Employees Engaged and Motivated with Your Organization and Leaders?
By Michael J Griffin
6-minute read
Let’s start with a real Asian case study!
My client was an MNC that manufactures toys in Indonesia. I worked with the CEO and directors to upskill their local leadership with two objectives: improve manufacturing productivity so the factory would not relocate to the Philippines, and secondly to have a happy and engaged workforce that would not vote for union membership.
For improving manufacturing productivity we developed leadership and teamwork workshops that were linked to profit, quality, and outputs, plus a regular manager 360 feedback survey to assess the leadership of all managers in the factory.
To assess employee engagement, we employed a half-yearly employee engagement and climate survey and specifically targeted select questions and employee responses that we thought were important to keep employees engaged, minimize the chances of employee unrest, and to keep a local disruptive union out. We also used the survey results to fine-tune the training required to grow productive, caring managers.
The “proof of the pudding” was in the manufacturing facility that I worked in, the union was kept out. The MNC had another factory nearby that did not use the engagement survey or employ training to upskill their managers. You guessed it – in the other factory the union came in! The moral of the story? Use employee engagement or climate surveys on a 6-month or at least yearly basis! Let’s review some of the reasons why this activity is important and how it worked well for the MNC in the case study.
There are several important reasons for conducting regular employee engagement surveys in your organization:
Measure overall employee engagement: Assess how connected, motivated, and committed employees are to their work and the organization thus helping to boost productivity. Remember to “cut and analyze” the responses by department, position, and possibly by age, sex, and diverse groups.
Identify areas for improvement: Pinpoint specific aspects of the workplace & leadership or team building that need attention, training, or enhancement. This can lead to a better ROI of your organization’s training investments.
Improve employee retention: Understand factors that might be causing employee turnover and address them proactively and reduce “quiet quitting.”
Enhance team productivity: Identify barriers to efficiency and effectiveness in the workplace.
Boost employee morale: Demonstrate that your organization values employee opinions and is committed to creating a positive work environment.
Track progress over time: Establish benchmarks and monitor changes in engagement levels as initiatives are implemented. We did this for the MNC in our case study.
Align company culture and leadership: Ensure that the organization's values and leadership practices motivate your employees.
Enhance hierarchical communication: the survey feedback can open channels for honest feedback and dialogue between management and employees leading better manager-employee relationships.
Support strategic planning: Use employee insights to align long-term organizational strategies and goals with internal goals and processes at a team and individual level.
At ELAvate we have two employee engagement surveys, one that has only 25 questions giving your organization a quick and easy overview of employee engagement. You can download the 25 questions of this sample survey here.
We call our more comprehensive survey an Organizational Climate Survey. This survey has about 70 questions so the organization gets more focused employee feedback across 18 dimensions. You may contact me if you want to see a sample of this more comprehensive survey.
Employee engagement surveys give your organization valuable data and feedback if they are implemented properly. I asked the GenAi platform Gemini to gain insight on the process and steps of a well-executed survey. The results of my research on the steps to conduct an employee engagement survey are found here. Download for your review and reference. I was happily affirmed that in the case study above, the MNC and ELAvate did follow most of the steps outlined by Gemini.
Employee surveys give accurate and worthwhile responses when the employees are sure their individual responses are confidential and not “peeked at” by HR or their superior. Your organization can use our proven ELAvate Survey Platform to ensure an excellent rollout of the survey, individual confidentiality of responses, assistance in analyzing the responses, and collaborating with your senior or HR team with strategies to improve employee engagement and subsequent productivity and corporate image.
Contact me for a no-obligation discussion if your organization would like to explore better and more productive employee engagement through the use of surveys, training or process improvement.
Michael J Griffin
CEO & Founder of ELAvate
Maxwell Leadership Founding Member
Korn Ferry Associate Trainer
michael.griffin@elavateglobal.com
+65-91194008 (WhatsApp)