Why employee engagement research is a smart investment
Let's face it, keeping employees committed and engaged isn’t always simple. With competitors vying for top talent and remote work reshaping office culture, many organizations are struggling to keep their teams motivated. The good news is, you’re in good company. Even a highly successful group like the Golden State Warriors recognize the importance of having a strong game plan for employee engagement.
While the challenges of maintaining employee engagement are widespread, the consequences of failing to do so can be severe. Organizations that neglect this crucial aspect of their workforce management often find themselves grappling with a host of issues that impact their bottom line and overall success.
Before we delve into the less apparent costs, let's first examine the more visible and immediate consequences of employee disengagement—the red flags that should prompt any HR or business leader to take action.
Get “The SurveyMonkey employee engagement handbook” to see our latest best practices for HR professionals.
The obvious fallout of employee disengagement
Employee disengagement has clear and measurable impacts on an organization. These effects signal underlying issues that require attention from leadership. If not addressed, these problems can compound, affecting both morale and performance. Here are a few examples.
- Productivity nosedives: Tasks that once took hours seem to stretch into days. Projects fall behind schedule and quality suffers. For instance, a software development team that typically releases updates bi-weekly now struggles to push out monthly fixes.
- People jump ship for new jobs: Turnover rates rise as top talent seeks other opportunities. When departments lose key members in a short period of time, they take years of institutional knowledge with them, leaving critical projects unfinished.
- Customer satisfaction takes a hit: Disengaged employees provide lower quality service, which lead to a drop in customer loyalty metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS). Some long-term customers may begin looking at competitors due to perceived declines in service quality and responsiveness.
While these visible consequences are concerning enough, they're just the tip of the iceberg. To truly understand the impact of disengagement, we need to dive deeper into the less obvious, yet equally damaging, effects on your organization.
The sneaky costs you might be missing
While the obvious impacts of employee disengagement are concerning, there are less visible costs that can significantly affect your organization. Though harder to detect, these issues can have substantial long-term consequences on productivity, security, and workplace culture.
- Misuse of work devices: Many employees use work devices for personal tasks. Our survey indicated that 39% of workers use their work laptops for personal planning, while 46% perform household chores during work hours. This not only affects productivity, but also poses potential security risks to company data and systems.
- Ineffective remote meetings: A significant portion of remote workers engage in non-work activities during virtual meetings. Our recent work culture survey* found that 46% of workers admit to multitasking during work calls. This can lead to longer, less productive meetings and reduced effectiveness when it comes to collaboration.
- Changing work ethics: Younger workers often have different expectations about work-life balance. While this can bring positive changes, it may also lead to decreased engagement during work hours, or “quiet vacationing.” The long-term effects on career development and company loyalty are still uncertain and require further study.
With all these hidden costs piling up, it's clear that employee disengagement is a problem that needs addressing. But how can organizations effectively tackle this issue? The answer lies in a powerful tool that's often overlooked: employee engagement surveys.
How employee feedback improves engagement
Employee surveys aren't just feel-good exercises. When implemented effectively, they serve as a powerful tool to overcome disengagement and foster a more productive, satisfied workforce. Here's how surveys can make a significant impact:
- Identify and address issues proactively: Regular surveys serve as an early warning system and a source of actionable insights. They allow you to spot potential problems before they spread and provide specific, data-driven information about what's working and what isn’t. For instance, you might notice a dip in satisfaction scores within a particular department. Based on the feedback, you can make informed decisions to address concerns, such as improving communication channels, adjusting workloads, or enhancing professional development opportunities.
- Facilitate open communication: Well-designed surveys, especially those with open-ended questions, can encourage employees to share thoughts and ideas they might not express in day-to-day interactions. This can lead to valuable insights and innovative solutions you might not have considered otherwise.
- Benchmark against industry standards: Survey benchmarking tools allow you to compare your results against industry benchmarks. This context can help you understand where your organization stands in relation to competitors and identify areas where you're excelling or lagging behind.
By using employee surveys strategically, you can transform them from a routine HR task into a cornerstone of your engagement strategy. They provide the insights needed to create a more engaged, productive, and satisfied workforce, ultimately contributing to your organization's overall success.
The bottom line
Employee engagement surveys aren't just nice to have. They're your radar for detecting the
hidden icebergs of disengagement before they sink your organization’s ship. By regularly gauging employee sentiments, satisfaction levels, and areas of concern, you can gain invaluable insights to guide strategic decisions.
Create a work environment that not only attracts top talent but also nurtures and retains it, driving innovation and growth in the process. Ready to turn your company into an engagement powerhouse? Get tips, best practices, and real-world examples to help you build a team that's all in, all the time, with “The SurveyMonkey employee engagement handbook.”
*This SurveyMonkey study was conducted August 5-14, 2024 among a sample of 3,117 full time workers in the US. Respondents for this survey were selected from a non-probability online panel. The modeled error estimate for this survey is plus or minus 1.0 percentage point. Data have been weighted for age, race, sex, education, and geography using the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to reflect the overall demographic composition of the United States.
