Chuck Gose at Mediatile takes exception to the Gallup engagement surveys, in a post on his blog.
“Of course, every company wants engaged employees because, according to many employee surveys out there, these employees perform better, provide boosts in profitability, miss less days of work, provide better customer service, smile more, yada, yada, yada…Well of course engaged employees do these things. If people like what they do and/or where they work, they are going to take more pride in what they do and as a result provide better returns. What I’m beginning to wonder though is what impact does a company actually have on employee engagement. Those employees have made the choice to be engaged in their business.”
I agree that ‘engagement’ may officially be a buzzword at this point, but the term is a summary. The Gallup methodology is well-established, and to the extent that organizations make an effort to improve the processes and systems being measured, there can be real progress to making that organization a great place to work. And that organization will tend to perform better than its unenlightened peers, according to both company and independent research.
Chuck’s objective, of course, is to point out the role that effective communication plays in contributing to engagement — and in that, we fully agree.
