Do Employees Really Care About Employee Engagement Survey Action Planning?

By Chris Atkinson, HR Consultant, Organizational Strategy, CPS HR Consulting

When the California Department of Human Resources (CalHR) recently hosted a conference focused on sharing HR best practices and innovative ideas to help California state government tackle its most pressing HR issues, Bob Lavigna, Director for the Institute for Public Sector Employee Engagement (IPSEE) was a natural fit to share his expertise and insight. Bob focused on a couple case studies of government organizations that saw large levels of improvement in the engagement of their workforce and subsequent measures of performance. So, for this session, Bob focused on arguably one of the most impactful categories: How to use the employee engagement survey process to increase organizational performance.

One of the main themes throughout the presentation was the importance of action planning based on survey results to help improve engagement, satisfaction, and ultimately productivity and retention, to hopefully be reflected in results in the next survey administration. While it’s true that action planning is a hot topic in the employee engagement world, it may not be obvious on the surface just how it can increase engagement. Let’s look at what some of the leading research has to say on the topic, and also review an example from the federal government.

Findings from surveys

Gallup, a recognized leader in research across multiple industries, has been measuring employee engagement for decades and has included research on the importance of action planning. Respondents in workgroups across two consecutive survey administrations were asked to indicate how strongly they agree or disagree with the statement, “Action plans from the last survey have had a positive impact on my workplace.” Gallup then sorted workgroups into quartiles based on their response to that action planning item. The result showed that workgroups in the top quartile increased their employee engagement scores by an average of 10%, whereas workgroups in the lowest scoring quartile showed a decrease in engagement scores by an average of 3%. So the groups that strongly agreed that their action plans had a positive impact showed significant increases in their employee engagement levels. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, a federal government agency, administers an annual employee engagement survey called the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS). In 2016, 77 federal agencies participated, with a total of over 407,000 respondents. It is one of the single largest employee engagement survey efforts by any entity in the United States. Of the participating agencies, NASA consistently has one of the highest overall employee engagement scores, year over year, compared to other large federal agencies. So, what’s the secret to their success in employee engagement?

One clue can be found when we look at how NASA’s survey scores add up in response to the FEVS question, "I believe the results of this survey will be used to make my agency a better place to work." In 2016 across the entire federal government, NASA’s score on this question came in at 62%, significantly higher than the average of 41% across the entire federal government that either agreed or strongly agreed with this statement. Not surprisingly, other federal agencies with high overall levels of employee engagement also have higher than average levels of agreement with the question, "I believe the results of this survey will be used to make my agency a better place to work." It’s easy to see that those who feel the survey will be used to impact their workplace in a positive way are also more engaged.

What does all of this tell us?

Employees are responding to action planning – or lack thereof - and it’s reflected in their level of engagement. So, what are some of the ways in which you can increase employees’ perceptions that action is being taken on the survey results? One way is by making sure to include employees in the conversation. The action-planning process should not completely take place behind closed doors. You can think of the employee engagement survey as a conversation starting tool. Action planning by itself can help increase employee engagement because the process demonstrates that employees’ opinions matter. Conducting the survey gives you a reason and an avenue to uncover and discuss issues, that if resolved, will drive engagement in your workplace. Depending on the survey areas you decide to address, it may also be helpful to include employees in task forces to uncover the root causes behind the issues and help develop the action plan. Once the action plan has been developed, it’s critical to communicate about it and periodically provide progress updates to employees.