Employee Engagement Survey Quotes

Every year, Gallup releases a wide-ranging study of the effects of “lack of engagement,” which it measures through a twelve-question survey asking employees to gauge their agreement with various statements, from “I know what is expected of me at work” to “At work, my opinions seem to count.” Within Gallup’s conception, “engagement” is a measurement of how much employees themselves are invested in the work but also of how much their managers and leaders are investing in them.

Pulse Surveys Pulse surveys are real-time surveys that are short and provide immediate feedback to managers and the organization. They are excellent tools to drive more employee engagement and create a culture of transparency. Platforms like, TINYpulse, help organizations gather this anonymous feedback by asking just one question per week to gauge employee engagement and provide actionable insights.

An effective survey question to ask your employees is how many minutes a week they spend learning on their own, not mandated, not directed. Typically it’s a small number. An organizational measure of improving health would be to increase that number. If you want engaged teams, don’t brief, certify!

Based on the findings of a recent qualitative survey carried out in Switzerland, in fact, most of us have up to ten discreet interdependent social identities—identities, the study concludes, which are often in conflict.16 Let’s imagine a middle-aged bank teller living in Pensacola, Florida. He is a father, a son and a husband. He is a Floridian. He is a bank employee. He is also a bicyclist and a recreational runner, and at night, drinking with his friends, he is “the funny one.” He is also a vegetarian, an amateur guitarist, and on weekends he helps coach soccer at his daughter’s high school. Then there are his online identities, including his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram selves. Most surprising is that the man’s ethical mind-set, honesty, sociability and even level of social engagement changes from personality to personality. Imagine that in his professional role, for example, he may be primed to dissembling, or outright deceit, while simultaneously, as a dad, he finds dishonesty repellent.

Bizarre and Surprising Insights—Consumer Behavior Insight Organization Suggested Explanation7 Guys literally drool over sports cars. Male college student subjects produce measurably more saliva when presented with images of sports cars or money. Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management Consumer impulses are physiological cousins of hunger. If you buy diapers, you are more likely to also buy beer. A pharmacy chain found this across 90 days of evening shopping across dozens of outlets (urban myth to some, but based on reported results). Osco Drug Daddy needs a beer. Dolls and candy bars. Sixty percent of customers who buy a Barbie doll buy one of three types of candy bars. Walmart Kids come along for errands. Pop-Tarts before a hurricane. Prehurricane, Strawberry Pop-Tart sales increased about sevenfold. Walmart In preparation before an act of nature, people stock up on comfort or nonperishable foods. Staplers reveal hires. The purchase of a stapler often accompanies the purchase of paper, waste baskets, scissors, paper clips, folders, and so on. A large retailer Stapler purchases are often a part of a complete office kit for a new employee. Higher crime, more Uber rides. In San Francisco, the areas with the most prostitution, alcohol, theft, and burglary are most positively correlated with Uber trips. Uber “We hypothesized that crime should be a proxy for nonresidential population.…Uber riders are not causing more crime. Right, guys?” Mac users book more expensive hotels. Orbitz users on an Apple Mac spend up to 30 percent more than Windows users when booking a hotel reservation. Orbitz applies this insight, altering displayed options according to your operating system. Orbitz Macs are often more expensive than Windows computers, so Mac users may on average have greater financial resources. Your inclination to buy varies by time of day. For retail websites, the peak is 8:00 PM; for dating, late at night; for finance, around 1:00 PM; for travel, just after 10:00 AM. This is not the amount of website traffic, but the propensity to buy of those who are already on the website. Survey of websites The impetus to complete certain kinds of transactions is higher during certain times of day. Your e-mail address reveals your level of commitment. Customers who register for a free account with an Earthlink.com e-mail address are almost five times more likely to convert to a paid, premium-level membership than those with a Hotmail.com e-mail address. An online dating website Disclosing permanent or primary e-mail accounts reveals a longer-term intention. Banner ads affect you more than you think. Although you may feel you've learned to ignore them, people who see a merchant's banner ad are 61 percent more likely to subsequently perform a related search, and this drives a 249 percent increase in clicks on the merchant's paid textual ads in the search results. Yahoo! Advertising exerts a subconscious effect. Companies win by not prompting customers to think. Contacting actively engaged customers can backfire—direct mailing financial service customers who have already opened several accounts decreases the chances they will open more accounts (more details in Chapter 7).

Speaking on Stage Speakers and presenters have only a few short seconds before their audience members begin forming opinions. True professionals know that beginning with impact determines audience engagement, the energy in the room, positive feedback, the quality of the experience, and whether or not their performance will be a success. A few of the popular methods which you can use to break the ice from the stage are: • Using music. • Using quotes. • Telling a joke. • Citing statistics. • Showing a video. • Asking questions. • Stating a problem. • Sharing acronyms. • Sharing a personal story. • Laying down a challenge. • Using analogies and comparisons. • Taking surveys; raise your hand if . . . Once you refine, define, and discover great conversation starters, you will enjoy renewed confidence for communicating well with new people.

Employee Engagement “Employee Engagement” has become a very hot topic in recent years. The escalating statistics for disengagement are alarming. In 2015, the Gallup Polls’ “The State of the American Workforce” survey found that only 32.5 percent of the U.S. Workforce is engaged and committed where they work, and 54 percent say they would consider leaving their companies if they could receive a 20 percent raise elsewhere. Disengagement not only lowers performance, morale, and productivity, but it’s costing employers billions of dollars a year. It's a growing problem, which has many companies baffled.

As a former consultant, I can tell you that many tout engagement as a panacea. They measure engagement through a short questionnaire, typically including statements like: “I have a best friend at work,” “In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work,” or “My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.” My chief HR officer friends tell me that engagement surveys fail to tell them how to improve. If your scores are low, do you raise them by somehow convincing more employees to be best friends? Or, if profits are low, is the best fix to start praising people more? We do measure some similar topics at Google (along with dozens more), but don’t merge them into a single all-encompassing construct like engagement. We see better results by instead understanding very specific areas like career development or manager quality.

Our employee engagement surveys showed a 30 percent improvement in lost sick days in one year. People are calling in sick less because they are feeling more empowered, more of a sense of ownership, and more connected.” Jump-Starting

Research shows that shaping an optimally motivated, engaged, inspired, and innovative team requires that a boss or manager spend around six hours per week interacting with employees. In fact, employees who spend six hours with their boss or manager are 29% more inspired—30% more engaged—and 16% more innovative than people who only spend one hour per week interacting with their leader.ii Spending time with your best people should be a priority, but 93% of leaders surveyed said they spend significantly more time with low performers, and that includes difficult personalities. What’s more, the time spent with difficult personalities sends a clear message to high performers about where you place your priorities. And when the bulk of your time goes to solving problems created by difficult personalities, it leaves your good people without the leadership they want and need.

In other words, more than half of employees surveyed lack confidence in their leaders. And, referring back to the statistics I opened the book with, 34 percent don’t even feel like they can raise these concerns without fear of negative consequences.