How to Beat Conducting an Employee Engagement Survey

Surveys are the epitome of "lies, lies and damned statistics." A survey of a few thousand extrapolated across a population of many millions is hardly absolute, no matter how much statisticians would have us believe it is. Yet we place an almost religious faith in them and use them to shape organisational and political policy. Do we give them too much credibility?

This question becomes even more pertinent when the topic is personal and the results thus likely to be highly subjective. Employee engagement surveys are likely to be particularly susceptible to this.

Certainly my misgivings have been sharpened by a fresh look at the Gallup Q12 – the list of 12 statements which underpin the Gallup Employee Engagement Survey. To see why let's just look at the first of these statements.

I know what is expected of me at work

Now no-one could take exception to that. Of course we would all rather work in a situation where we know exactly what is expected of us, but does that knowledge really make us any more engaged? After all, the slaves building the pyramids or rowing a Roman galley would have known exactly what was expected of them. That, however, would not have made them feel engaged in what they were doing!

And what if you had moved into a new role just prior to the survey being undertaken, and you were still finding your feet?

Suddenly your employee engagement survey, which is in any case a costly and time-consuming exercise, looks more of a subjective exercise assessing a moving target. So how reliable is it? Is the cost justified? In light of this, do you think you would prefer to find a more effective way to assess your employee engagement levels?

Well, the good news is that you do have an alternative. Because employee engagement is so important and significantly affects your bottom line, you can look at the possible consequences of employee disengagement and, by examining their prevalence in your organisation, ascertain the state of your employee engagement.

That is precisely what the Zealise Assessment Programme offers you – a business-focused assessment of employee engagement levels in your organisation. Don't you think it is worthwhile investigating as a viable alternative to conducting an employee engagement survey?