In hyper-competitive markets, the skills, experience and knowledge of employees are central to innovation, delivering a better customer experience, making better decisions and improving the bottom line. This means ensuring staff are engaged is a business priority. Listening to their feedback and acting on this insight is vital across all sectors.
However, given the pace of change, traditional approaches to engagement, such as the annual employee survey, are no longer enough. Businesses need to move to a more continuous dialogue with staff, and add new ways of gathering and acting on feedback to gain more comprehensive insight into the views and thoughts of employees. People expect the same ability to give feedback at work as they do in their private lives when leaving online reviews and ratings.
Companies need to move up the maturity curve if they want to unlock vital insight and innovation from their people
Moving to constant feedback provides the ability to transform employee engagement. However, it is not something that can be completed overnight. To help businesses successfully deliver this change we’ve created the Questback Employee Maturity Curve Model. It is made up of four separate stages that see organisations move up the maturity curve in how they use feedback. Look to identify where you are currently and then see how you can move forward to meet your objectives. The four stages are:
SATISFIED
Most organisations are currently at this stage, with engagement centred on a single, annual, anonymous survey across the entire workforce. But this information is not integrated with data from other feedback sources, such as exit interviews or performance reviews, and is stored in a silo, reducing its effectiveness. Individual concerns cannot be followed up and the main focus is on using feedback to drive tactical improvements or scores. Set-up, collection and analysis are time consuming, particularly as many surveys are still paper-based. Essentially results are backward looking, rather than focusing on what is happening now.
ENGAGED
This moves beyond the single, annual survey to add the collection of event-driven feedback across the employee journey. These could include recruitment, onboarding new joiners or after training sessions. There is a clear link between feedback and follow-up actions, making it obvious to employees their views make a difference and that they are being listened to. Feedback is handled much more holistically, with comparisons able to be made between departments and countries.
MOBILISED
At the engaged stage, employees’ voices are embedded with business processes, with staff feedback driving improvements. The mobilised stage creates a constant dialogue that makes feedback a central part of business operations. As well as event-driven listening, feedback is “always on”, allowing staff to share their views however and whenever they want, confident that they will be heard. Mobilised businesses benefit from a real-time understanding of what is happening within their workforces, and use this information to guide their strategy and take strategic rather than just tactical decisions.
AHEAD
Completing the move from reactive to proactive, ahead organisations go beyond insight to be driven by foresight. Decisions are based on a deep understanding of employee behaviour, allowing businesses to pinpoint trends and opportunities, and immediately act on them. Together, a mobilised workforce and continuous feedback and knowledge drive a transformational, sustained performance improvement which leads to a high-performance culture. The journey to the final and ahead stage of the model takes time, and builds on the progress achieved within the first three stages.
Employee engagement is at the heart of a thriving business, so companies need to move up the maturity curve if they want to unlock vital insight and innovation from their people, and retain their skills for the long term. As with any major project, it requires a step-by-step approach, working with experts with the experience and technology to guide you up the maturity curve.
To find out more how Questback can help your employee engagement progress click here
