Become an Employee Engagement Champion With These 7 Tips

Business

Become an Employee Engagement Champion With These 7 Tips

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February 16, 2022

What does it take for a company to become an employee engagement champion?

At Nextiva, we’re proud to be named Employee Engagement Champion above 1,000 employees in the LinkedIn Talent Awards.

This award recognizes companies that have created a culture of continuous feedback and growth to improve employee engagement and well-being. Nextiva was recognized as the top engagement champion based on our utilization of and impact from using LinkedIn Talent Solutions.

So, what does it take to get there?

Employee engagement ebbs and flows during events like the pandemic. To better understand those changes, at the end of 2020, we implemented a new method of capturing employee feedback and sentiment with bi-annual team surveys.

Through these surveys, we have identified opportunities for improvement. They’ve allowed us to see where we’re succeeding and where we aren’t. Our entire team voiced feedback on all aspects of the employee experience, including internal communication, products, career development, and more.

But improving employee engagement doesn’t end when the survey closes.

How to improve employee engagement following surveys

After conducting an employee survey, transparency and responsiveness are key. So, after seeing how we fared, here are seven tips for improving employee engagement using surveys across a large, hybrid workforce.

Send a thank you note. After the survey closes, send an internal message to thank the employees who took the time to complete the survey and to let them know about next steps. Will you share key findings in a later message? Have you already identified some action items? Your team will appreciate the transparency.
Guide managers on how to share feedback with team members. Once a survey closes and preliminary feedback is available, it’s important to educate managers on discussing the survey results with their teams. At Nextiva, we employ the ACT framework for managers:

Acknowledge the results.
Collaborate by partnering with the team to discuss the results.
Take one step by choosing one thing to focus on.

Identify strengths and areas of opportunity. As a leadership team, it’s vital to analyze the data and open-ended comments. Examining employees’ responses and the broader trends suggests which areas to dedicate improvement efforts to and celebrate where you’re already excelling.

Don’t bite off more than you can chew. If there are multiple areas that need improvement, commit to focusing on one or two that will significantly impact engagement.

Take action. Taking action is vital, as this in itself can positively or negatively impact employee engagement. Once you identify specific opportunities to improve, let your team know that you’ll be focusing time and effort there. Tying initiatives back to the survey feedback is a great way to say, “we heard you, and here is what we are doing about it.”

Create focus groups. In a recent pulse survey, we identified that internal communication could use further refinement. So, we created an internal working group focused on this initiative. Change doesn’t have to come from senior leadership; you can empower managers and employees to influence change, too.

Maintain momentum. Once you’ve addressed areas needing improvement, talk about them. Communicate straightforward updates to your team. People want to see action come out from their feedback. Coincidentally, this also upholds one of Nextiva’s values: Caring.

How Nextiva implements survey feedback

For our first survey, we chose a comprehensive 30-question survey to establish a baseline. It was no surprise that work/life balance was identified as an area of opportunity during the early days of the pandemic. We started sharing additional tips for working from home and valuable resources, like our Employee Assistance Program. We also asked managers to be more mindful of how they can improve this for their team members.

Checking in on progress is also key. We ran a follow-up pulse survey six months later. Our team’s excitement for Nextiva’s future and career development increased by five points from the baseline!

The bottom line: listen, share, and act

Surveys can be a powerful and effective method of improving the employee experience — if you take them full circle by listening to the input, sharing results, and taking action. If team members don’t see the whole process playing out, they are less inclined to share their thoughts next time.

No company is perfect at everything all the time. We all have areas to grow in, so don’t be afraid to share those challenges and encourage team members across the company to rally around them. Your culture will only be better for it.

Want to join a more engaged company? Browse our rewarding career opportunities!

Mark Green joined Nextiva in 2019 as Chief People Officer. He is responsible for leading Nextiva’s people strategy and operations to ensure the company’s environment enables teams to flourish, individuals to grow their careers, and provides for everyone to contribute to the company’s growth in a meaningful way. Mark has over 25 years of experience in leading HR teams and driving transformation in tech around the world.