A more insightful employee engagement survey
If you want to know why your employees aren’t engaged and what to do about it, you’re probably asking the wrong questions.
In 9 Lies About Work, authors Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall studied the most meaningful questions to ask in employee engagement surveys. Turns out, you can learn what you need to know from just eight.
The authors contend that people can not reliably rate each other, as judgments of others reveal more about the person doing the rating than the person being rated. Therefore, annual engagement surveys, performance rating tools, and 360-degree assessments all contain contaminated data, which means all your analysis and discussion of typical survey results are flawed.
They argue that it’s far more effective to ask people about their own feelings and experiences, which produces more reliable, variable, and valid data.
Here are the eight questions they’ve studied that reveal true engagement, challenges, and opportunities:
I am really enthusiastic about the mission of my company.
At work, I clearly understand what is expected of me.
In my team, I am surrounded by people who share my values.
I have the chance to use my strengths every day at work.
My teammates have my back.
I know I will be recognized for excellent work.
I have great confidence in my company’s future.
In my work, I am always challenged to grow.
Unlike vague, one-size-fits-all engagement surveys, these questions create specific, actionable insights based on psychological motivators.
Questions one and seven are about the employee's relationship to the company, all of the others are about people’s relationship with their team, because teams are where people actually work, and a person’s experience with their teams has far greater impact on their productivity, turnover, and perception of the company.
People don’t experience engagement as an abstract company initiative; they feel it in their everyday interactions with colleagues and managers.
In other words, Alignment is emergent, not coerced.
Even if your company uses ineffective engagement surveys, you can use these eight questions to improve communication on your team.
