The first step to get insight

Stepping into a leadership role I found myself wishing so badly to create the greatest environment for my team of makers. What I saw as my first roadblock was that I in fact I did not know if what they currently had was something they were happy with. Therefore I designed my 1:1 meetings to cover topics that would help me evaluate also their happiness. Several 1:1 meeting later (my schedule is one 1:1 meeting per 3 weeks), I was still not sure of what to make of it. I am a big fan of numbers and data that is comparable, therefore I pushed my idea to have company-wide pulse surveys. 

What survey?

One might ask what is a pulse survey? I found from peoplepulse.com the following description: "A staff pulse survey is a short, quick survey that is sent out to employees on a regular basis (monthly, quarterly, etc.). This survey is essentially a check-in, providing a pulse check on topics such as employee satisfaction, job role, communication, relationships, and work environment."

Why a survey?

Well, that still leaves the questions what good does it do, if you already are checking in with your team on a regular basis? I myself see it as data validation. One thing is what my team tells me, but I have to keep in mind that I do not cover the same topics each 1:1, therefore it is not always comparable. Having a monthly pulse survey provides a regular measure and trend line all throughout the year of changes in engagement and satisfaction levels – providing a level of transparency. Also, whatever they tell me during our 1:1 meetings, is always covered in (a) a layer of what they feel comfortable with telling me; (b) how I am able to interpret it, as at the end of the day, everyone's understanding is limited by their own experiences.

I see a regular pulse survey as a tool to encouraging positive engagement. I value what they have to say and I want them to know that them being able to express their thoughts, concerns, and motivations is important also for our organization. And as I already wanted to implement it in our team, I saw that as a positive tool for company-wide engagement as well. Therefore the data would not give me, as a team lead, only a tool to compare month by month changes, but also I would see the health of company-wide engagement. First I could use this information to dig deeper and figure out what other teams are doing better or secondly, share with other teams, what we in our team are doing to keep engagement high. 

What topics?

As employee engagement covers so many different topics, it is not possible to cover everything important with 1 quick survey. Therefore the company-wide survey had to make decisions on what are the priority topics to cover. Among a few general questions it was decided to measure the following topics:

• Organizational fit - measure the extent to which employees believe the culture and values of the organization match their own.

• Recognition - how strongly employees think their work is valued by the organization.

• Growth - employees’ perceived opportunity, in terms of personal and career development.

My view of priority topics for my team differed in some parts and therefore I went ahead with designing a new approach for my 1:1's. I want to understand my teams engagement (ability to harness their "full self" at work) in three aspects: (1) finding meaning in work; (2) feeling the amount of work they’re responsible for is reasonable.; (3) having the mental and physical availability to harness their full selves. With the new approach, I will have mini in-person pulse survey-like questions that they can rate from 1 to 10 with a once per quarter frequency.

What to ask?

I have decided to measure the following topics:

• Meaningful Work - whether employees consider their work to be valuable – to themselves, the company, and potentially society at large. 

• Workload - whether employees feel the amount of work they’re responsible for is reasonable.

• Organizational fit - measure the extent to which employees believe the culture and values of the organization match their own.

Bringing it all together

Bringing together layers of regular 1:1's, a general monthly company-wide pulse survey and a quarterly mini pulse survey 1:1, it gives me, in the end, a fuller overview of how supported, fulfilled and motivated my team of makers feels themselves to be. Therefore instead of me leading them on the assumption of what they feel or think, I will be powered to make leadership decisions based on what they have told themselves they feel and think.

I highly recommend learning more from how Peakon sees the way to measure employee engagement here.