Which question is more important?
Notwithstanding the ubiquity of employee engagement surveys, the vast majority neither increase nor maintain employee engagement. In fact, a new report from Leadership IQ finds that only 22% of companies see good results from their employee surveys (i.e., survey scores were low and improved dramatically, or scores started high and remained high).
One of the reasons why so many surveys fail to drive improvement is that most companies don't know the single most important question on their survey. On every survey, there's one question that does a better job than all the others of predicting why employees will feel engaged or disengaged. That question is different at every company, and it's driven by your unique culture, history, the mix of people, leadership styles, etc.
For example, at the recent Forbes Future of Work Summit, former Patagonia head of human resources Dean Carter noted that they started asking employees the engagement survey question "as a result of working at [the company], do we put more into your life than we take out?" Carter noted, "That one question … mattered more than any other question we've ever asked."
The single biggest issue driving employees' engagement at Patagonia is the extent to which the company puts more into employees' lives than they take out. But that's probably not the biggest issue at your organization. The biggest issue for your employees could be whether they understand the company's vision, or whether managers listen to employees' suggestions, or whether performance reviews are fair and honest.
The only way to know for sure which survey question is the single most important issue for your employees is to analyze your survey data. One of the most effective ways to run that analysis is with multiple regression.
Multiple regression is a statistical analysis for predicting the value of one dependent variable based on multiple independent variables. In other words, it's a tool to reveal which issues are the biggest drivers of employee engagement for your unique workforce. Here's an analogy to better understand multiple regression. Imagine that you're shopping for a new pair of jeans. What factors go into your decision? Maybe 60% of your decision will be the fit (e.g., slim, loose, etc.). Another 20% of your decision could be driven by the weight of the fabric (e.g., heavy or lightweight). Perhaps an additional 10% of your decision is based on the color (e.g., dark, light, acid-washed, etc.). And so on. If you're pressed for time and need to maximize your odds of choosing the perfect pair of jeans, your best bet will be to select jeans based on the fit.
Engagement surveys work similarly. Let's take two companies, Acme and Corpo. At Acme, 62% of an employee's willingness to recommend the company is driven by whether their direct leader encourages and recognizes suggestions for improvement. At Corpo, 59% of an employee's willingness to recommend the company is driven by whether employees understand the rationale behind their organization's strategy (e.g. economic, marketplace, competitive factors, etc.). The employees at those companies are motivated by drastically different issues, and the tactics for increasing engagement will be equally divergent.
One of the key reasons for understanding your most important question is that it clarifies and focuses both your understanding of your workforce and the actions necessary to engage your people. If you know the one question that matters more than all the others, you don't have to waste time playing around the edges of employee engagement. You can simply target the most important issue and watch engagement skyrocket.
Tackling all the low scores on an employee survey doesn't guarantee increased engagement; there are plenty of questions on every survey that have both low scores and little interest from employees. Employees may hate your corporate color scheme, but that probably has little impact on their engagement. If you want better and faster survey results, find the one question that drives your people and focus all your energy on that issue.
