Ugh. You just received the results of the latest employee engagement survey, and it’s not good. In fact, it’s worse than you expected. You know morale is low and turnover is high, but jeez, you didn’t think your team was this unhappy. What do you do now? Is there a way out of this? What can you do to turn things around when things are so bad?

What can you do to turn things around when things are so bad?

Well, even though things may seem impossible, if you want to make a difference, you can. Yes, I said it. Even when your employee engagement sucks, IF you want to make a difference, you can. As with most things impacting your team, be prepared, the change has to start with you.

As with most things impacting your team, be prepared, the change has to start with you.

So what do you do? Once you realize you need to change first…

1. Put your ego and emotions aside. I know. This is easy to say and hard to do. However, you can’t hope to objectively identify valid corrective actions if you’re busy disagreeing with comments or justifying current leadership actions or inactions being criticized in the findings.
2. Read the survey results again. Look for themes, trends, and links between the issues identified. Are the ratings and comments indicating inadequate or simply bad communication? Are the comments citing weak or warped management skills? Are you seeing requests to fix systems or improve convoluted processes? Are people saying the culture and work environment is getting worse? You need to identify what is causing many of the symptomatic problems the survey may be highlighting.
3. Identify Your Top 3-5. Identify 3-5 actions to take ASAP that will resolve or make a dent in the thematic items identified. You might decide to initiate quarterly skip-level meetings to enable staff to engage directly with you as a way to improve and align communication. You might see an immediate need to provide targeted, skill-specific mentoring and training for ALL managers to develop basic management skills. You might also determine that more transparent action and communication needs to happen around the technology enhancements being made to streamline processes so people know what’s going on.
4. Thank Them. Acknowledge the survey and its findings and thank your staff for their time and input. There is nothing more harmful than asking staff to provide feedback on how things can be improved, and then not even acknowledging their input.
5. Identify What Can’t be Done. Identify and acknowledge any repeated themes or requests that simply can NOT be addressed or resolved. If there are repeated requests to raise salaries and there simply isn’t the budget for it this year, tell them. Don’t ignore the request. Tell them if and when increases are planned or what alternative non-cash dependent benefits are planned.
6. Outline your Go-Forward Plan. Clarify the 3-5 specific actions you are going to take, within the next quarter, to start addressing the top issues you ‘heard’ from them through the survey. Then outline quarter by quarter, what additional actions will be taken to build upon one another and address the interconnected and pressing issues they raised.
7. Implement Your Go-Forward Plan. Now implement your plan. Which issue(s) is each action intended to address? What is the intended outcome and how will it move the dial in the right direction? How will you track each action’s progress? Identify and track each.
8. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate – BRIEFLY, at the start of each quarter, report what happened in the prior quarter to move the dials. What worked and what didn’t? What are YOU going to do THIS quarter to move things in the right direction, AND what do you ask of THEM, your team, to help move forward with you?

Human beings like to keep score and get a sense of, “Are we improving or not?” By listening to your team’s feedback on what is working and what isn’t, creating and implementing a go-forward plan to address the issues that need to be addressed, and then communicating your progress towards improvement, you by default, cause increased engagement with your team. Why? You’re responding to them and their request for your support. The more you change to support them, the more they’ll change to support you.

So, what do you do when staff engagement sucks? Pay attention and change the way you’re leading.

Lead the way they need to be led so they can perform better and enjoy the work they do.

Copyright MMXXV – Liz Weber, CMC, CSP – Weber Business Services, LLC – www.WBSLLC.com +1.717.597.8890

Liz Weber is an advisor to boards of directors, business owners, and C-Suite leaders. She’s a leadership, strategic and succession planning consultant, speaker, and author. She helps her clients focus on the right things at the right times to get the right impact. Learn more about Liz on LinkedIn!