If there is cash and fear (especially at the executive level) there will be consultants to fill the vacuum. To get as much of the $ as possible requires lots of assessment and lots of gathering of information. There is certainly engagement in that model…

Your post rings true.

I find as an external with leverage (the high level part) and the tag “change management consultant” I can tell you if there is engagement from the first conversation on. And, yes, it may be as simple as people with smiles on their faces getting things done. Each time I do it saves the client thousands of dollars that can be spent connecting vision/strategy to people/work (and vice versa). That is the engagement everyone is looking for.

Good stuff Brett- thanks for the post.
GG

Maybe if it was taken without bias that’d be one thing, but we were so under the thumb to ace this thing that we were taking folks out to steakhouses the night before, half jokingly saying “5 is the right answer” because in the end these results would come back and club you over the head. We compared plant to plant and it was very punitive.

Gallup was making a TON of money off this from my company. With no results on our end.

Using your own example, just because a tree’s leaves and fruit look good today does not mean that the tree is healthy – it could be diseased now and dead in a few months too. Does that mean don’t measure a tree’s health by looking at its leaves and fruit? Of course not. But I don’t agree that just because water, sunlight and fertilizer don’t necessarily mean health that it’s not a good idea to measure those qualities as well. I think you should examine both the tree and its environment.

I think Earl’s reply is very instructive. Survey research is simply a tool. It should serve as a platform from which to begin or continue a discussion about the type of work environment a company and its employees want to create together. It gives you a good idea of places to “shine a flashlight” that may be productive areas to work on, or areas of strength to amplify. Just like any other tool, it can be used productively or (like in the case of Earl above) destructively.

I agree that consultants should be careful about claims regarding business performance (especially financial performance) as a result of engagement interventions. Organizations are organic and constantly changing. You are exactly right that figuring out what is a cause and and what is an effect (and even what cause causes what effect) is probably impossible in most cases. But I can say that I have personally seen many examples where a company has experienced significant improvement in business results after working steadily on employee engagement. I’m sure you have too. That’s not necessarily cause and effect, although in many cases I believe it is.

I’ve never thought that improved financial performance should be the main thing motivating an engagement project. Whether there is a measurable financial impact or not, creating a great place to work is the right thing to do. But there are clearly measurable impacts of a disengaged workforce (absenteeism, presenteeism, shrink, quality problems, etc.) that do have a financial impact on a company. To whatever extent these things improve – whether they can be specifically tied to a specific survey statement or consulting intervention or not – they help a company succeed.

Thanks again for a great post and discussion. Phil.

Unlike many who should no better, you have seen through the fog of correlative analysis with your critical thinking. Without saying it out loud, you have succeeded in pointing out (at least to me) that this practice of substituting a correlation for a causal effect is at best questionable and at worse, a pile of horse s..t … er, fertilizer.
The rest of my post is here: http://tao-of-it.com/2009/09/16/the-fallacy-of-measuring-employee-engagement/.

And you can’t tell me that making sure people have the tools and resources they need to do their job drives engagement, happiness, or optimism in any significant way…