By David Bator

So your organization is finding it difficult to keep employee engagement high? Join the club. It’s one of the most pressing issues in the corporate world, and it’s a problem that the majority of organizations are dealing with today.

However, the reason so many companies are struggling to keep employees working hard is because they have simplistic and outdated engagement programs. Many businesses believe they can motivate employees simply by throwing money and tangible perks at the issue.

While everyone enjoys a pocket-bulging bonus and vacation in Hawaii, these are only short-term fixes for low engagement. Because guess what? Workers still have to come back to the office after that tropical trip or the run to the bank to deposit that big check. Instead of focusing on fleeting engagement initiatives, companies should strive to create more powerful, lasting programs. The best ones are all about taking action, retaining top talent and understanding the return more engaged employees can have on an organization.

Take action in the wake of surveys
Employee surveys are not a new tool in the corporate world. Rather, they are some of the most frequently deployed strategies to help HR professionals gain insight into the office environment.

The problem is many companies don’t apply the results of such surveys into their operations. While this may seem mind-boggling, it’s a trend that far too many C-suite leaders are enabling. Most tenured professionals – even those in HR – can think of at least one occasion in which the results of an employee survey were largely ignored.

Avoid employee frustration with real actions
In an article for Lead Change Group, HR author and founder of Trailblaze Inc. David Dye highlighted this troubling fact. He talked about one company where employees were frustrated when a new survey came to their desks.

This company’s staff felt that their input was ignored on multiple occasions, and the only changes that came from employee surveys were trivial, such as changing desk arrangements and creating a task force to redecorate the office.

Employees want to enhance productivity and boost efficiency just as much as executives or managers. However, when their input is not valued their engagement levels are more likely to decrease.

To combat this, managers and executives need to take action in the wake of surveys. This means finding detailed, useful insights that can have positive returns. Here are a few tips for getting the most from employee feedback:

• Center change on business results: try to focus on only making changes that will drive business results. Restructuring departments, adapting how a service is delivered or overhauling how the sales team generates leads are all positive changes that can be derived from deeply analyzing the results of a survey.
• Focus on what can be changed: it doesn’t make sense to ask a question about an aspect of the workplace that a business can or simply won’t change. This will provide false hope to employees that a better method will be coming, when legal, financial or other constraints might make change impossible.
• Put data front and center: making the case for investing in engagement programs can be challenging for HR managers, so it’s important they have the data to support their plans. Executives are much more likely to approve a program if they have hard numbers to look at when deciding whether or not to give a program the green light. Also, quality performance and engagement data can help HR teams create more informed strategies.
• Keep it relevant: some teams or certain professionals may not know enough to answer niche questions. For example, a query about the sales process will have little relevance to an IT support employee. If they are forced to answer such questions, they will not only become disenchanted with the survey, but results will be skewed.

Don’t Waste Your Employees Time
Employee engagement surveys are a waste of time and money if you do nothing with the results.

The end goal is to make change so you end up with employees who are happier and work harder, your customers are satisfied, and your business is more profitable.

The organizations that move the needle on engagement realize that a survey is only the first chapter in what must become a much larger story.

David Bator is passionate about programs that move people. As Vice President of Client Strategy at TemboStatus he works with growing companies everyday and helps them bridge the gap between assessing employee engagement and addressing it with action. For the last 15 years David has worked with the leadership of companies large and small to build programs that leverage strategy and technology to deliver extraordinary value for employees, customers and partners.

This excerpt from Three Conditions to Keep Employee Engagement Soaring is reprinted with permission. You can download a complimentary copy of the entire report.