You've all heard the story - an emperor with a penchant for finery is conned by two people posing as weavers. They offer to supply him with magnificent clothes that are invisible to those who are incompetent or stupid. Although he can't see the 'new clothes,' the Emperor refuses to say anything as he doesn't want to appear stupid. He parades in the 'new clothes' in front of all of his advisors and townsfolk who go along with the charade because they also don't want to be considered stupid. Eventually a child blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all. The people then realise that everyone has been fooled.
Yup - you've guessed it: in this article I'm going to be that child - explaining why I think that engagement surveys are to us HR leaders, what those 'new clothes' were to the Emperor - something that we know deep down are a costly illusion but which we're too scared to be honest about.
Engagement Surveys DO NOT improve engagement
Don't worry, I know that every HR Leader who uses an Engagement Survey will be able to point to a metric or two, or even five, that they can claim has been positively influenced due to changes they made off the back of their Engagement Survey. I know that because I've done it myself. They will also say that of course surveys themselves are not intended to resolve issues, they just report on them - it's the strategies they inform which improve engagement.
Let's get real though, Engagement Surveys have been around for over 30 years and they are used, in some form or other (predominantly annual/bi-annual, pulse, or lifecycle), by 80-90% of organisations. In Gallup's 2023 "State of the Global Workplace" report* though, 87% of European employees (90% of UK employees) were disengaged. Let me say that again, 30 years of engagement surveys across most organisations, and only 13% of European employees (10% of UK employees) are engaged.
The engagement gap is not being closed, despite the widespread and longterm use of Engagement Surveys.
Why Engagement Surveys do not improve engagement
There are three main issues with engagement surveys:
1) They don't actually give a full or accurate picture of workforce sentiment: a) people don't trust that engagement surveys are anonymous so they don't put in what they really think; b) the least engaged, who you most need to hear from, are the ones who don't complete them.
2) Output is devoid of context - no matter how carefully and specifically we word a question, two people could give the same rating for very different reasons. We therefore don't truly learn what the problems are or what will resolve them.
3) They generate expectations that cannot be met - even if we chunk surveys up into pulse surveys or employee lifecycle surveys, we still get more feedback than can be adequately addressed quickly and with central resources. This leads to frustrated expectations and cynicism about the process - a leader at one of the UK's most well known retailers shared recently that the lowest score they receive every year is against the statement, "I believe that things are going to change as a consequence of this survey."
Why we fall for the illusion
1) Surveys produce data and we HR Leaders love data. Data helps our imposter feelings - it enables us talk the same number-heavy language as our finance/commercial counterparts. Even if that data doesn't ultimately enable the outcomes we want it to, we can frame it so that it looks like it does and it still makes us look professional and important even while we fail to make progress.
2) Surveys create busywork: we're all in dopamine-deficit, recovering from a pandemic, and existing against a backdrop of economic uncertainty and global instability. Many people are just trying to get through the day, keep their families fed, and make it to the weekend unscathed. Administering surveys and attempting to respond to survey output fills the days of HR folk in a way which is considered legitimate since we collectively maintain the fiction that surveys are valuable exercises.
3) Everyone does it so it must be a good idea: "Nobody ever got fired for [implementing an engagement survey]."
4) Because nobody's making us admit things are broken, we're under no pressure to fix them.
Why this is a serious problem
1) Organisations are wasting time and money: surveys are not only costly in £-terms but, as we discussed above, they also take resource to administer and respond to. Investing in surveys is not only a waste of time and money and consequently a margin-inhibitor, but it also prevents time and money being invested elsewhere more productively so it's a revenue-growth-suppressor as well.
2) For as long as we think we're solving the problem, we will fail to actually solve the problem: as the Gallup data shows - only 1 in 10 employees in the UK is engaged. Continuing to do the same things and expecting different outcomes.... well we all know what that's the definition of.
There is a better way
How about we flip things on their heads:
Instead of:
Reporting on issues and then trying to resolve them, we resolve them and then report on the impact of resolution.
Creating a centralised burden from localised issues, we enable localised issue resolution and create centralised insight.
Just reporting on levels of engagement, we actively enable the workplace characteristics that we know drive engagement: empowerment, purpose, connection, psychological safety, self-development.
What if you could do all that with no effort overhead and 'in-the-workflow'/without disruption to business as usual? With Perspective this is all possible, and easy, and free.***
Let's all start to be honest about the fact that the emperor's not wearing any clothes. Engagement surveys don't improve engagement. Perspective, however, does.
*** Perspective pays for itself within weeks through improvments in productivity.
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