Nonprofit HR’s Blog

Employee engagement surveys are wonderful! They are full of HR goodness and only outstanding organizations conduct them – that’s why they are outstanding organizations. But often times all of the power of engagement surveys are never unlocked by HR.

JasonLauritsen calls engagement surveys “seductive mistress for leaders and human resources professionals.” Why?

Lauritsen says there are a few fundamental questions organizations should answer that will guide them in pursuing employee engagement in a way that is more likely to produce a measurable impact on the organization’s mission.

First, how does your organization define employee engagement?

Lauritsen writes that one of the biggest issues with employee engagement is that there seems to be as many definitions of engagement as there are people on the planet.

“In the absence of a standardized definition of engagement, it is absolutely critical to get clear on what engagement means for your organization. If you haven’t defined engagement for your organization clearly and you have been using an engagement survey from a vendor, you are defaulting to their definition of engagement which may or may not be relevant to your business.”

He also wants HR to ask how does engagement drive the mission for your organization and how can you measure engagement in a way that enables HR to take action that impacts results? Lastly, how will HR prove engagement’s impact on results?

By addressing these simple questions, HR should have better success unlocking all the power of engagement surveys.