The Globe and Mail wants to know how work is going. They’re turning to a national employee engagement survey. It’s a move that more and more companies are using to improve employee engagement in their office.

The Globe and Mail’s Your Life at Work Survey, done in conjunction with Howatt HR Consulting, can be filled out here.  It’s said to measure your stress levels and determine whether you’re able to cope.

“This survey takes a look at four themes that affect your life at work: what causes you stress; what’s the effect of that stress on you and your health; how you cope or don’t cope with that stress; and how does this influence your commitment to your job and your organization,” said the Globe.

“The four themes come together in a our Quality of Work Life (QWL) Risk score. The higher your score on the risk index, the greater your risk for a slew of health-related issues.”

Employee engagement surveys are a great way to gain new insights into how connected your employees are to their job and your company.

If you have any questions about what an employee engagement survey can do for your team, please contact us any time.

Vancouver city employees recently completed an engagement survey. And the results are not good.

The city is dealing with low morale across the board, particularly with their fire department. Things have gotten so bad that results show that only six per cent of respondents have confidence in Fire Chief John McKearney and his management team.

These numbers even came as a shock to City Manager Penny Ballem, who has made it her mission to improve engagement and culture.

“What they told us was that if we were going to embark on this, you need to know the next (survey) in a big complex organization like this one gets worse,” said Ballem.

“We realized if we just boil the ocean for a couple of years we probably won’t get any results. So we had a very focused strategy of what we wanted to work on.” 

3,288 city employees filled out the survey last summer, with a response rate of 48 per cent. In 2010, the response rate was slightly higher, at 50 per cent. However, far more firefighters took the chance to be heard, with a response rate around 65 per cent.  This was much higher than the 36 per cent rate from 2010. 

If you have any questions about what an employee engagement survey can do for your company, please contact us any time.

If you’re not pleased with the results of your latest employee engagement surveys, remember: It comes from all levels of your organization. Not just the top.

Many people assume employee engagement starts at the top and trickles down. That is true to a degree, but there’s much more to it than that. Even your new hires have a direct impact on employee engagement.

Larry Myler, a Contributor at Forbes.com recently explored a new hire’s impact on engagement in a conversation with Sue Marks, founder and CEO of a talent management company called Pinstripe.

Myler wrote:

“According to Sue, ‘Employee engagement starts long before the recruiting process begins.’ Prior to initiating recruitment services for any new client, the Pinstripe team first establishes what they call the ‘employee proposition.’”

“This concept is based on the hiring company’s brand, and it helps guide all recruitment efforts toward that elusive and all-important prize known as fit—i.e. compatibility between the company and the new recruit. “

There’s nothing easy about it. Recruiting skilled people is hard enough. Bringing in the right people who can get on board with your goals and culture right away is tough. But trying to engage disconnected employees is much harder.

If you have any questions about what employee engagement surveys can do for your company, please contact us any time.

What’s a “stay interview?” How can they help employee engagement, while keeping your best employees out of an exit interview or exit survey? 

We’ve recently come across this new practice, which is used by some companies to hold onto their superstars. Basically, you’re sitting down for a frank discussion with employees who are at risk of being poached, or leaving for other reasons.

“They are a direct opportunity to prevent flight risks from leaving, but they are also a deep dive into engagement,” said Lenore Lambert, director at The Interview Group, told www.hcamag.com.

“So other than targeted retention, they are a useful follow-up tool for engagement surveys, targeting staff in areas that are less engaged and identifying specifically what needs to be done to get the best from people.”

This pre-emptive strike can help you hold onto your top performers, while gaining insights into what might help you retain the rest of your staff.

This is a relatively new idea, so there is no real data to show the success rate or any other numbers to support the stay interview’s impact on turnover or retention. However, the idea is a good one. And properly executed, it could make sure your best employees remain YOUR best.

If you have any questions about what exit surveys or employee engagement surveys can do for your company, please contact us any time.

An ethnically diverse team is great, but they present challenges for the people who manage them. A recent article explored how employee engagement survey can help these managers keep their team motivated.

Carol Patton of Hreonline.com suggests using an employee engagement survey and asking questions like, “Do you feel you're able to be your best in this team?” Or “Are your ideas taken seriously?”

“Armed with employee feedback, HR can then begin coaching team leaders. Ask questions such as: What would it feel like if your team was more innovative? If that happened more often, how would that benefit you?”

In the same article, Tricia Dupilka, director of talent solutions at BPI Group lists 360 evaluations and employee engagement surveys as valuable tools, while warning against using them too early.

"People have long memories… If you do a 360 too soon, in the back of their mind they may be thinking about well, in the last six months it's gotten a little better, but they're not thinking about the difference in the last month," said Dupilka.

"We recommend that a full 360 be done 12 to 18 months down the road."

If you have any questions about what employee engagement surveys or 360 degree evaluations can do for your company, please contact us any time.