How Engagement Surveys Fit Within Performance Management

In this section, we'll be talking about how Engagement Surveys fit within the larger context of a performance management solution, and what synergies you can take advantage of. Please review all the following sections carefully. Each of the chapters are broken down into separate articles, which are linked in the table of contents below.

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Leaders and HR teams recognize the importance of assessing employee engagement: 74% of companies will use formal, large-scale surveys to gauge employee engagement, and 80% of leaders believe that high engagement helps them achieve business objectives. However, leaders and managers can get more value from engagement surveys by integrating them into other key elements of their performance program.

Many HR teams leverage engagement surveys as the source-of-truth on employee sentiment. However, powerful insights can be gleaned from performance evaluations, too. We recommend that HR teams and leaders leverage both engagement surveys and reviews for a deeper understanding of employee sentiment. For instance, performance evaluations have valuable data on:

• Who are my top and bottom performers?
• Which departments have the highest and lowest performance?
• Which offices have the highest and lowest performance?
• Which departments have the highest flight risk?
• Which departments have the most or fewest promotion recommendations?

By combining engagement survey data with insights from performance evaluations, HR teams will be better informed as they plan key initiatives at their companies.

After HR teams and leaders identify the most important engagement-related initiatives to tackle, the next step is to start acting on them. The best way to do this? With a goal management solution. In Reflektive, we provide HR teams and leaders with suggested action plans based on their areas of opportunity. Some Reflektive-recommended action plans are below:

Feedback can also be used by HR teams to gauge the success of new employee engagement initiatives (e.g., adding new benefits, implementing a work-from-home policy, etc). Not only can HR staff monitor employee kudos on their efforts, but they can ask for feedback via Reflektive’s “Request Feedback” functionality. For instance, six months after implementing a work-from-home policy, HR leadership can launch a request to get feedback from five to seven key stakeholders. They can ask how the policy has impacted their productivity, the office culture, and employee morale. This will help the HR team better assess the impact of their initiative, and drive improvements to it as well. 

In addition to using 360 reviews to gather feedback on engagement-related initiatives, 1:1s are an excellent opportunity for leaders and managers to discuss progress in improving employee sentiment. For instance, if an Engineering Manager is building out career paths to address her team’s uncertainty over career growth, she can use her 1:1 with the VP of R&D to discuss her recommendations, risks, and next steps. 1:1s enable open, honest conversations to drive strategic initiatives forward -- and are an ideal forum for moving the needle on employee engagement.