Measuring Employee engagment program efficiency

[Gunjan Banerjee]

Dear Friends,

I am working for an IT services company in India, and we are facing problem in figuring out the best way to measure the engagement program we have initiated in our company.

We have found that lots of people are just coming to work and they don't participate in the events we organize in the organisation.

I would like you to suggest me few ways through which i can measure the engagement program we have initiated for our employees.

Regards,
Gunjan

[Ben Simonton]

Sounds like management is attempting to "engage" employees, big mistake. Management can disengage employees, but cannot "engage" them. "Engagement" can only be achieved by each employee on their own and will only be achieved if management has created the correct environment. This is easy to do, but management will have to get rid of the normal top-down command and control approach to managing employees.

Best wishes, Ben
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[Stephen J. Gill]

I suggest you read the comments to Melanie Quinn's forum on "Employee Survey Methods" posted on August 20th. Also, other forums over the past year or so have addressed this issue (for example, June 2, 2008).

The answer depends on the size and culture of your company and on what, specifically, you want to know. In a small company, individual interviews with 10 to 15 people, asking the right questions, might get you all the information you need. In a large company, you might need to do a survey first and then follow that with focus groups and individual interviews. If all you want to know is why people don't attend the events, I would start by talking to a few people and begin to identify some reasons and categories of reasons. This might tell you what should be your next step. You might not need to do anything more than that.

[Jason Scott]

The best overall measure is, of course, company performance. Both revenue and net profits will rise with employee engagement. I agree with Ben Simonton that the management can't force engagement on employees, so the best course of action is to stop doing things that demotivate and disengage employees. "Forced fun" events for example.

[Derek Irvine]

I think you may find this post (and link to a book on this topic) very useful. http://globoforce.blogspot.com/2009/07/measuring-reward-systems-dri...

It helps you determine what actions/behaviors you want to measure, figure out how to measure it, and then how to put such measurement into place.

[Ben Simonton]

Derek,

In my experience, rewards have a negative influence. This result is well explained by Alfie Kohn in his book "Punished by Rewards". I highly recommend it so as not to fall into the trap.

Best regards, Ben

[Derek Irvine]

Ah yes, Alfie Kohn. A bit dated in thinking, but also a bit confusing in how people will always use the terms "recognition" and "reward" interchangeably. "Rewards" Kohn talks about (trinkets and trash, with no meaning, intent or purpose behind them) are not desired or useful in the short or long-term for achieving company goals.

Unfortunately for this discussion, Steve Kerr also uses the term reward where, in some cases, recognition is the proper term. As I say in the blog post I linked to:

Different types of rewards include compensation and incentives, prestige awards (special, infrequent awards such as a President’s Club that are limited to a few), and content awards such as recognition, feedback, and management attention.

Which system is best for your needs? Steve offers this test of a good rewards system (all of which are achieved through content awards):
• Everyone is eligible to participate – “When you make people ineligible for a reward, you take away their motivation to strive for it.”
• High visibility – to encourage others to want to achieve
• Performance contingent – and not on seniority, titles, etc.
• Timely – soon after the action being rewarded occurs
• Reversible – doesn’t build up entitlement

I'm sure you would agree "content awards" as Kerr describes them rarely have negative influence. That is the "reward" I'm speaking of.

I do recommend the book. It's a quick read and quite insightful.