"Employee Engagement" Survey--are these things ever useful?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Our company recently decided to have all of us peons in our office take a Gallup poll on “employee engagement”. Completely anonymous, blah, blah, blah, this poll is designed to let the company know how to change corporate culture to better retain good employees (since we’re all dropping like flies at the moment, or at least planning to make a move once the economy improves/something better comes along.) Oh boy! I thought. Maybe I won’t have to look for a new job after all! I was all poised to sound off about the schizophrenic scheduling, stupid vacation/time off scheduling policies, lack of sick leave–you know, the things I ranted about in this thread.

Turns out, though, that it was a complete waste of my time. The questions were very vague. You rated these statements 1-5…I think that 1 was "strongly disagree and 5 was “strongly agree”. Some, I wasn’t sure how to answer…“My manager listens to me.” Yeah, she listens to me when it comes to my actual job, how I do it, etc., but when it comes to this stuff that drives me crazy, it’s “nothing I can do.” So, I put a 2 for that…but I’m sure that will just be interpreted as a need to listen with regards to the job itself. The only question that really related to one of my beefs with the company is the one about how the different parts of the company work together. Well, they don’t, at all. Maybe that will change, but I’m not optimistic.

Some of the quetions rated a real “huh?”, like “I have a best friend at work.” Well, no I don’t, but I’m not sure why that matters at all. Are people who have their best friend at work more likely to put up with more shit?

So, any of you ever taken a survey like this? Did it actually do any good? Did corporate culture change? Just what exactly is meant by “corporate culture”, anyway? I thought that it meant things like “family friendly” or “straightlaced” or “casual” or “formal”, but these questions did not address that at all, as far as I could see.

Well, we all completed the survey, so we’re supposed to get a barbecue lunch. I’m hoping for Famous Dave’s, but I’m guessing that the managers will be flipping burgers on the gas grill…

2

I completed one of those at my last company - they seemed to listen and care, but in the end, not a damned thing changed. “Change takes time. We can’t do everything overnight.” Well, I gave you over a year, and I saw nothing. Change doesn’t take that long. Oh yeah, we got a barbecue lunch, too.

3

I dug out my copy of The Dilbert Principle, and found the cartoon where the Pointy-Haired Boss asks Dilbert to fill out a survey of employee attitudes towards their bosses. “It’s totally anonymous, so you don’t have to fear any retribution.”
PHB: “Oops! It looks like your questionarie is a bit dog-eared. I’ll put my phone number on the confidential envelope in case you need me. You can use this green marker pen. Oh, and I took the liberty of checking off your ethic background as Eskimo. It’s just a statistical thing.”

Dilbert: “Question 1. Does your boss clearly communicate your objectives?”

4

It’s more BS so they can pretend they care about their employees while not doing anything. If everything comes out good, they’ll pat themselves on the back. If everything’s bad, they’ll put on their Concerned Faces and make soothing noises, then head back out to the golf course.

5

No. I’ve seen it a number of ways in my 26 years with my company. Sometimes it’s a questionaire. Sometimes it’s outside consultants doing interviews. Sometimes a combination. Most of us old-timers realize that it’s all for show, and that Management already has planned what they’re going to do. They just highlight the parts of the results that agreed with what they had in mind all along, and do what they had already decided they were going to do.

Which might explain why the last time they brought in consultants, the results were never disclosed. So many of us old-timers told the consultants in the interviews that what they were doing was completely irrelevant, that Management already knew what they were planning, and that they (the consultants) should just be happy that you’re getting paid for it. After the consultants had finished, Upper Management kept getting dogged by the people on the lower levels about the results. They kept saying, “The final report will be out in a few months.” Well, it never did come out. They released a brief summary of some parts of the final report. Those that did get a chance to see the whole report confided that the report was so negative that Management didn’t think it would be such a great idea to distribute it.

6

Placebo.

7

…-- are these things ever useful?

No. Eat the donuts and forget about it.

Pullin

8

My last employer was Shell which loved this sort of thing. I guess the fact I voted with my feet suggests none of it changes the world. The management is rubbish out here but then I knew it would be and am getting compensated accordingly! If it is a one-off exercise then it is probably a fig-leaf to cover what they are planning anyway, if it is part of a continual series (say every year or 2 or 3) and change is actually measured then it might improve things as it becomes part of the standard process. And the “we can’t do everything overnight” line could not survive that sort of continual spotlight.

In Shell we had the latter system - and it did change some things for the better. Honest! But frankly the best thing single thing they introduced that did change stuff was 360 degree feedback - the results of which for the management grades had to be revealed to their staff!

For most of the management it was the first time reality hit them in the face with a wet kipper **AND ** then had to go and say what they were going to do about it to their staff which still holding said kipper. A great day… one guys got the nickname “donut” following his session as the graph of his perception of his abilities (big ring on chart - good at everything) completely surrounded the 360 feedback result (tiny ring on chart - rubbish to everything). It looked just like a…

He was history from then on. :smiley:

9
  • Waste Of Money, Brains And Time.

My old company (a telco) performed one and realized that no matter how they spun it, results were terrible. People basically speaking hated the last couple of reorganizations, realized that a lot of things happened due to egos competing and not for good technical reasons - in short, not good.

A few initiatives to improve morale were planned - and spoken and written extensively of - but never really implemented. (I think we got t-shirts, though.)

6 months later, however, a new survey was to be made - to document the non-existent immense improvement in morale. People were getting ready to put the fork in. Problem.

So for once, our management team demonstrated that they could actually exhibit intelligence as long as it had a direct effect on their self-preservation: They hired another consulting company to do the second survey, claimed that the surveys couldn’t be compared, due to differences in methodology, and then went on to behave as if their initiatives had boosted morale immensely.

I’m still impressed with that maneuver.

10

I’ve not only filled out the survey, but I’ve been on teams evaluating survey results. I know there is a lot of cynicism - in fact a standard question is whether previous surveys have done any good. But they can make a difference in some areas.

But not all. The written comments get looked at, and there is always someone who says the company is on the wrong track, and that all management is dumb, etc., etc. These get read but usually get discarded as being outliers. If the mass results show something similar, something might be done, but it is expected that there will always be a few complainers.

Then there are comments that go against the company culture. Nothing will happen with those. There are some that say what should have been done with perfect hindsight. There are those that complain about pay, and too much work. But management makes the decision about where to set average pay levels, so these comments won’t do much good.

Comments that do cause changes, in my experience, are about things that don’t threaten managers but which might have been given lower priority. Communication is one. I’ve seen serious efforts to address complaints about management not giving enough information about company direction. Another one about groups not talking to each other led to the setting up of seminars to trade best practices. I’ve been in high level staff meetings discussing these things, and they are taken seriously. Sometimes the bonuses of execs depend on the scores - before you pooh-pooh them, check to see if this is true for your company.

But the survey is not going to make a crappy manager a good one, or make the execs of a company suddenly wake up and decide they’ve been doing everything wrong. If that is what you expect, no wonder you’re disappointed.

11

100% anecdotal evidence: I am a Helpdesk guy for a company that authors survey writing and analyzing software. My overall impression (from the folks that call in) is that these surveys are not only overwhelmingly pointless, but that the results from them get manipulated and “cooked” all to hell. Basically, they seem to be for the most part used by incompetent middle management to look as if they are doing something “proactive”.

12

I also work for a large retail corporation that does an annual Gallup telephone survey, of the sort that the OP referred to. As a matter of fact, it sounds like it might be precisely the same generic survey. And like the other people who’ve responded so far, no matter what the results look like, it’s likely that no substantive changes will result from it. It’s an extremely generic questionaire, and doesn’t really give you the chance to offer any sort of meaningful feedback.

Now, let me say up front that I like my job for the most part. I like my department, I like the people in my department, and I like my department manager, and I like interacting with the customers for the most part. The raving psychotic retail customers from hell are luckily few and far between. Every complaint I have about the company I work for is somehow connected to our upper management at the store or district level, and a baffling assortment of policies and priorities that seem to be at odds with doing our jobs efficiently. As our Appliances department manager says, we make money in spite of their best efforts.

With that in mind, I gave a lot of “strongly disagree” responses on my last survey because it reflected the truth of our working conditions as I saw them. The 2003 survey at our store was so bad that our store manager apparently took some heat over it from his superiors, since he clearly wasn’t in a very good mood when he discussed the results of the survey. Essentially, he placed the blame on low morale in our store on us, claiming it was our fault for working here if we don’t like it. It has nothing to do with the fact that we’re short staffed, communication is non-existant, management treats employees as if they’re disposable, and the management has a tendency to set incompatible goals and wonder why we can’t reach them. Ever since the angry meeting in which the results were disclosed, talk of being engaged or disengaged has become a huge joke among the rank and file employees.

Meetings were held, and a course of action was plotted out that does nothing to address the fundamental sources of low morale in the store–and our compliance rate with our plan of action is 0%. At least some of the companies mentioned in the thread already have the good sense to cover up the results of these pointless surveys or cook them up to make them look better. Our management team couldn’t possibly find clearer ways to display the fact that they really don’t care, are just going through the motions because it’s expected, and don’t intend to fix a damned thing. I used to find Dilbert strips funny, but I haven’t been able to laugh at them in a while, because the reality of corporate culture can be just as bizarre as the attempts to lampoon it.

13

My former employer discovered that 48% of respondents said they were actively seeking another job.

They interpreted this to mean they had a staff full of ambitious go-getters.

14

Ours was on the computer rather than the telephone, but, yes, it was incredibly generic. All they had to do was (insert company name here)! That’s what inspired me to start this thread, actually. How can they expect to get any sort of meaningful results from such a survey at all? I can’t see how such a survey would tell anyone anything at all (and, from the responses here, it looks like that may be precisely what it’s designed to do.)

Exactly. The survey does nothing to address what is wrong, or why we feel that way. They may be able to tell that we are unhappy, but that’s about it.

“Gee, the people in Tamex’s office are very unhappy. Must be because they don’t have best friends at work. Well, let’s have some more company parties, shall we?”

15

I believe you’re talking about the Gallup “Q12” Engagement Survey. We have it at my workplace as well. We’ve had it for several years. We used to take it annually, and then announce we were forming “action committees” to address areas where our scores were low. As far as I can recall, not a single thing has every happened as a result of the action committees in the four years I have been with the company.

This time around, I’ve been elected as the leader of an “action committee.” Yay, me. Now I get to either deliver nothing, which I hate doing, or strive mightily against inertia and incompetence to try to make a difference. Woo-hoo.

Oh, and the “I have a best friend at work” question is carefully worded. You’ll notice it’s not “I work with my best friend” – what they’re looking for is if there is someone at work you feel is a best friend in that context. If there’s someone at work you trust and talk to, chances are that you’re more likely to care about your job. It’s not a universal indicator, though. :slight_smile:

Oh, and in answer to the original question: they could be useful, but they’re not. As pointed out previously, all too often the survey results are interpreted to best advantage of the recipients, and the actions taken are meaningless.

16

Well, I’m bumping my thread because we just got the results of our survey. You were right, Brainiac, it is the Gallup Q12 Survey. And, like your company, we are forming “action committees”. I was surprised to find that we peons are apparently invited to join these committees–and I just may, because it may just beat taking calls, right?

Actually, even if nothing comes of it, the fact that they are at least forming these committees does reassure me a little bit. I mean, it’s one thing to say “I disagree” to “I have a best friend at work”, but the crux is in the “why”–well, it’s difficult to make friends in a place where you work different shifts, different breaks, different lunches, etc. every day with different days off every week. You can’t, say, meet for drinks after work like you might at other jobs–my “after work” might be at 10 p.m., and yours might be at 12 a.m. or 5 p.m. or 6 a.m. We’re not even supposed to talk to each other while we’re working! (though that rule gets broken a lot.)

I’m also apparently not the only one who feels that our department has been severely overlooked equipment-wise. We didn’t even have it in the budget for 2004 calendars, and the vertical blinds with missing slats have not been fixed at all in the year I’ve been here (and apparently they’ve been broken much longer than that.)

So, perhaps there is a way to twist these answers in order to get what I want after all. And, if nothing happens and I end up quitting, they’ll know why if they are willing to look.

Yes, I am a disengaged employee (although I wouldn’t consider myself actively disengaged).

Goddamn, I forgot to ask about the BBQ lunch! We’d better at least get that–the chart on the wall said we had 100% participation. Grrrrrrrr…

17

In an amazing coincidence, my take on the annual company survey is the currently featured article at workingfortheman.com.

Our annual survey is given the month before the managers do employee reviews. I’m sure this is done on purpose. For the first time this year, my manager screwed me over on my review. Because he was late doing the reviews and because of my weird working schedule, he actually got me to sign off on the review before I read it. He is so going to get it next year, even though it won’t do any good except to make me feel better.
The last time my group decided it was worth the trouble of being honest and therefore my manager got bad ratings, he got all sulky for months and informed us that he didn’t like being our manager, so there.