Why conversations trump employee engagement surveys

Recruiting, motivating and retaining employees comes down to workplace satisfaction, of course—staff polls, not so much. The author suggests talking to people instead.

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Millions of words have been written about employee engagement, and over a billion dollars is spent annually in the U.S. on surveys and improvement interventions.

What progress has been made, though?

In Gallup’s Worldwide Employee Engagement Crisis report, the authors assert:

Three key factors stand out: execution flaws, paradigm flaws, courage flaws.

Execution flaws. Most HR pros will concede the following problems:

Enacting viable solutions requires recognizing the paradigm flaws that keep most organizations from addressing engagement.

Paradigm flaws. Engagement surveys, even those soliciting comments, give you only the tip of the iceberg. When these surveys are deemed a comprehensive gauge, employers miss out on valuable, actionable information that can be elicited only through in-depth, one-on-one interviews. Furthermore, these direct exchanges can help you to:

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