From Measurement to Improvement: An Agile Approach to Employee Engagement

Few would dispute that the world in which we live and work is changing at an extraordinary pace. In this dynamic landscape, business executives face immense pressure to not only survive – but thrive. In other words, they have to keep up with the pace while bumping up profits.

Continuous innovation is a strategy we hear trumpeted again and again as the key to edging out competition and driving growth. It’s no surprise then that agile principles, are no longer exclusively used by software teams. They’re also being increasingly adopted outside of the software industry to speed up product and service innovation.

Agile employee engagement

Recently, a growing number of companies have been testing out agile principles in a less expected – but highly impactful – way: employee engagement.

No longer considered a “soft issue,” there is hard evidence pointing to the connection between happy employees, customer satisfaction and even profits.

In fact, one recent study showed that 79% of companies with highly engaged employees are ranked as having customer experiences that are highly superior to those of their competitors.

Agile in action

It’s clear that employee engagement can be a very real source of competitive advantage. But can agile really be applied to the workforce as effectively as the software industry has applied them to products? For companies that have tried it, the answer is a resounding “yes.”

Just look at BBVA. After finding success implementing agile scrum units in customer solutions and engineering, the financial services organization decided to take the strategy company-wide. This included BBVA’s HR and talent group, which was responsible in large part for employee engagement initiatives. BBVA shook up its traditional hierarchical teams, which included giving end-to-end autonomy to an Employee Experience group. By concentrating related processes in one group, it was able to not only implement more initiatives more quickly, but also to link activities to specific KPIs. The company is well on its way to continuous and measurable improvement of employee experience.

In the case of BBVA, the company is proactively nurturing the connection between employee engagement and increased performance. By using agile principles to boost employee satisfaction, the company is simultaneously encouraging greater productivity and more agile internal mindsets.

https://www.bbva.com/en/opinion/hr-goes-agile-case-study-bbva/

An employee survey is not an engagement program

SHRM recently reported that while “annual reviews are time-consuming…and often focus on goals that are outdated or irrelevant… continuous feedback solutions improve collaboration, coaching, decision-making…skills acquisition, employee engagement, and retention.” In other words, the annual employee survey – that long-time business staple – is no longer enough. Achieving real results requires an agile approach.

The reason agile seem to be so effective is that, compared to the traditional annual survey which focuses on measuring certain perceptions at a moment-in-time (and then, too often, is forgotten until the following year), agile programs create opportunity for real-time actionable improvement.

“Metrics on their own don’t drive change or increase performance.”

– Gallup, The Worldwide Employee Engagement Crisis

Where to start

While a company like BBVA has totally restructured its HR and talent department to create an autonomous Employee Engagement team, this may not be a viable solution for every business. Tools such as CultureAmp, BlackbookHR, and BetterCompany give employees ways to provide direct – and frequent – feedback to managers and peers.

To be truly effective though, managers and senior leaders must to be ready and willing to act on the information received. And they must be aligned in how to to act. This can be easier said than done. In our experience, companies with a clear vision for why they exist and the ultimate impact they want to have on all stakeholders – in short, a brand – are the ones most able to act on feedback and engage employees in a meaningful and purposeful way.

Ask yourself: Should employees be focused on collaboration or customer service?

Do you want them to be authoritative or approachable?

What are the behaviors you are trying to encourage?

A strong brand platform can help answer these questions. It acts as a roadmap, helping employees at all levels of an organization understand where the company is going and the role they are expected to play in getting there.

To learn more about best practices for employee engagement, contact us.