Issue 140: What most engagement surveys miss 🔎

It’s an alarming stat. According to Gallup, employee engagement has sunk to a 2-year low. They advise the usual tactics (check in with people, ensure they feel cared for, things we know!), but in our view, they’re missing a key point: pinpointing exactly where the leak is. For some context, we survey every team we start working with, and we do it again every six months or so. It’s a great way to understand how people are feeling, offer a thoughtful outlet for feedback, and compare the vibe between teams, tenures, etc. But engagement isn’t the only thing worth measuring, and if your surveys only covers it, you’re missing something major.

To really understand what it feels like to work somewhere, you need to go deeper. Are people feeling supported during onboarding? Do they understand how to grow, get promoted, or how pay decisions are made? Is hiring delivering the talent you need? When you measure these touchpoints too, you can take a lot more tangible action. Here’s what we’d do:

• Map out every touchpoint of the employee experience. Hiring, onboarding, review time, 1:1s, compensation- this is different at every organization.

• Make sure you have at least one meaningful question that asks for feedback for each of these touchpoints.

• When designing the questions, be mindful that some employees are more experienced than others re: what good looks like- you may have to spell it out for them. Try a ranking question like “Our hiring process is standardized, organized, informative, and well-run”, vs simply asking them to rate it.

• If you have the tools (or the time), compare your engagement data against each. Most solid surveying tools (or external partners, like B+E) will give you insights without breaking anonymity, as long as you have a large enough sample size. For example, are those who think our hiring process is bad more pessimistic about the organization’s future? Do folks who have a low understanding of how your career paths work see themselves leaving sooner? If we then implement some fixes, do those adjust in the next survey? There’s lots to play with here!

Whether you’re a leader or HR pro, surveying both engagement and how your programs are landing should help you prioritize where to invest your time and budget, and give you the data to back it up. 

Want more on designing great employee surveys? Check out our full guide here!

Stay bright,

Nora

Bright Reads 🌞

Curated reads and resources re: building great places to work.

• Majority of UK Workers Support Specific DEI Initiatives, Survey Finds (But when asked about DEI as a concept, men are more likely to think it’s gone “too far.”) (HR Brew)

• Your Resignation Checklist (The Cut)

• What Happens When You Leave Your Career (and Identity) Behind (Andy Johns)

• Why Getting a Job Is So Hard Right Now (Teen Vogue)

• The Unspoken Power Dynamics of Calendly (Wes Kao)

• How Lush Employees Led The Brand To Create Sensory-Friendly Spaces For Neurodivergent Customers (HR Dive)

• Everyone I Know Is Worried About Work (Rosie Spinks)

• “Anybody who’s clever enough to be able to do their work in a shorter period of time and slack off? I want that person” (Globe and Mail)

A special note:

Our team, a few of us having connections to Vancouver and the Filipino community, is heartbroken over the violence at last weekend’s Lapu Lapu Festival. B+E’s Clea Arrieta has shared a few resources below for anyone seeking support or solidarity:

• Filipino Grassroots Resources and Offerings

• Filipino Emergency Response site (includes grief circles, GoFundMe links, and information on gatherings)

Bright Jobs ☀️

Every issue, we’ll share a curated list of exciting jobs at Bright + Early partners. Bright + Early organizations are all committed to building human, inclusive places to work. Note that we’re not involved in hiring– please apply directly.

• Senior Privacy Specialist at Bamboo Data Consulting
  Join a collaborative, forward-thinking team that's making privacy work smarter.

• Open Roles at Unbounce
  From Engineering to Product to People Ops, Unbounce is hiring across a few departments.

• Product + IT Roles at RaceRocks
  An Indigenous-owned, woman-led company working on cutting-edge learning solutions for complex industries.

• Program + Product Specialists at Palette Skills
  Be part of a national team delivering innovative upskilling and career transitions for Canadians.

Coming Up 👀

May 1 is International Workers’ Day

May 5 is Cinco de Mayo

May 12 is Mother’s Day (Canada + US)

May 20 is Victoria Day in Canada, with the federal stat holiday on May 19.

May 23 is Vesak, the Buddhist celebration of Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and death

May 27 is Memorial Day in the US (stat holiday)

May is Asian Heritage Month in Canada, and both Jewish American Heritage Month and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month in the US.

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