It is so important to secure the support of key stakeholders when setting out an engagement programme. Without their support, a survey will lack meaning or credibility from the outset.

Companies report employee frustration that surveys are a tick-box exercise and they don’t see what value it offers, while managers sometimes also fail to grasp its purpose and relevance. Other commonly reported issues include:

·         Managers and business leaders only getting involved at action planning stage

·         Managers finding questions irrelevant to their business priorities

·         Managers finding it difficult to interpret results and find any meaningful data

Best in class companies take a consultative approach to engagement, involving employees, managers and other key stakeholders in the full circle of the programme.

Getting this early involvement helps to identify considerations that may be missed in a top-down design. It’ll also help to secure stakeholder buy-in, increasing their cooperation later. Everyone knows their roles and responsibilities. They will understand the engagement programme’s purpose, how they can contribute to its success and, crucially, how they stand to benefit from it.

This is a guest blog post from my colleague – Joanna Swiatek, Business Psychologist at ETS