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Why measure and track employee engagement, satisfaction and well-being over time?
Satisfied and motivated employees are more productive; they ensure greater customer satisfaction and contribute to a positive perception of their company on the job market. Objectifying the perceptions that employees hold about the organization in which they work not only uncovers the pain points but, above all, makes it imperative to take action.
Does a survey provide more and different information than the insights gathered through personal conversations, such as performance reviews or positions adopted by union representation?
Organizations and companies that limit themselves to personal conversations run the risk of gaining a distorted—and even overly negative—view of what truly exists among their current staff:
In a survey, every employee is given an equal voice and will be able to express themselves on all aspects of working life.
A systematic, structural survey of staff and personal conversations are, however, complementary: personal conversations provide deeper insight into the underlying issues and the ways in which they can be addressed.
What is the difference between a survey measuring employee engagement, satisfaction, and well-being and the so-called “Culture Barometer” or an “Employee Engagement Survey”?
The classic design of an employee survey is often focused on measuring the basic dimensions of staff satisfaction such as “Task,” “Compensation,” and “Working Conditions.”
More and more, organizations also want to measure dimensions such as the company’s style and employee engagement, and track them over time.
Ideally, all of these dimensions are included in a single survey so that the interrelationships and coherence among them can be studied.
Do SMEs also benefit from surveys such as the McMe survey on employee engagement, satisfaction, and well-being?
For large and medium-sized enterprises, the benefits are clear. The scale of the company often makes it impossible to keep a finger on the pulse through individual conversations.
In SMEs, conducting surveys through individual conversations would indeed be feasible. However, in practice we now see more and more SMEs moving toward systematic employee surveys. The anonymity of these surveys ensures that SME employees feel free to express their opinions openly and honestly—even on aspects such as leadership style and collegiality, which in a personal interview with the SME’s director can often trigger many sensitivities. It is precisely this relative small scale of many SMEs that means employees do not fully dare to voice their opinions when asked in one-on-one conversations. In this case, an anonymous and reliable form of data collection provides the solution.
How often are the McMe surveys conducted?
Generally, these surveys are conducted every two years. This allows enough time to implement improvement actions and monitor their effects. Organizations experiencing rapid growth or major change processes sometimes benefit from measuring at a faster pace; in such cases, surveys at shorter intervals are possible. And because it’s crucial to actually “do” something with the results of these studies, organizations with a large workforce often choose to phase their surveys—for example, surveying manual workers one year and salaried employees the next.
Research: do it yourself or outsource it to an external party?
Nowadays, it is fairly easy to run a survey entirely in-house. However, the benefits (especially in terms of cost) do not outweigh the drawbacks. Companies that are part of an international group are often obliged to participate in an employee survey organized at the international level. A frequent criticism is that, in such cases, the questionnaires pay insufficient attention to local needs or are too generic, making the results of little practical use. There is a wide selection of local external providers that conduct employee surveys. Most HR consultants offer this service, and most market-research firms include it in their portfolios. The choice of one provider over another is often driven by the need for professional guidance throughout the process and the specific objectives behind the survey. Since companies typically want to repeat these surveys on a regular basis, it is naturally important to select a partner and a methodology with which they can build a long-term relationship.
What are the decision criteria for choosing between conducting an employee satisfaction survey in-house or outsourcing it within a company or organization? Between different approaches and methodologies? Between specialists and generalists? Between HR consultants and tool vendors?
The success of a survey hinges on the quality of the questionnaire, ensuring that the results are valid and reliable. This often leads organizations or companies to outsource the work and opt for tools whose functionality has already been proven. The main advantages are then:
The choice of the most suitable external partner usually depends on the need for:
What are the decision criteria for a company or organization when choosing between online and paper?
Online questionnaires have several important advantages:
In certain cases, however, online administration will not be possible, and the pen-and-paper method offers the only way to reach respondents. This applies, for example, to groups who, in their daily activities, have no access to a PC or lack the necessary computer skills.
Providing a room equipped with multiple PCs under supervision can be a good compromise, preserving all the advantages of an online survey. In that case, for the sake of procedural objectivity, it is best to appoint an external facilitator or an internal confidant. After all, anonymity and confidentiality must always be paramount.
What are the critical success factors?
In order for the results to be representative, you must aim for a 75% response rate. To this end, three conditions must be met:
1. Being able to guarantee that responses remain strictly confidential.
2. Communicating the results openly and honestly.
3. Taking concrete action based on the results.
How do we communicate poor results?
The research results should be communicated openly and honestly—including the less favorable findings.
However, it is important to implement a number of “supporting measures”:
How do we handle sensitive information, such as strong criticism of certain managers’ leadership qualities and/or tensions within teams?
Just as we guarantee anonymity to the survey participants, we also handle team- and department-level results with appropriate discretion. All staff and any present union representatives receive only anonymous data. Even when the findings show that certain groups are performing less well, this too is always presented anonymously at that level.
It is, of course, inevitable that the relevant manager and the group in question will see their group’s results. Naturally, this must be done with the utmost care. Experience has shown, however, that this often sparks a new dynamic in which the group itself actively seeks a solution to the problem at hand. Depending on the severity of the issue, it may be advisable to enlist the help of an external facilitator.
The McMe method?
The McMe method approaches employee satisfaction, engagement, and well-being according to positioning principles. In other words, employees evaluate their company on three parameters:
- Importance
- Uniqueness
- Satisfaction, engagement, and well-being
The combination of these three parameters is unique and makes measurements according to the McMe method extremely concrete and action-oriented. The McMe method approaches employee satisfaction, -engagement, and -well-being holistically, studying all parameters and their interrelationships.
The questionnaires and the conversion of responses into parameters were carried out under the direction of Prof. P. Coetsier, an international authority in this field. McMe thus has internationally validated questionnaires that measure what they claim to measure and are universally applicable.
The method and questionnaires were developed in collaboration with Barry Callebaut, ensuring that, in addition to the methodological and research-technical aspects, the practical usability of the instrument was fully safeguarded. The McMe method has been used since 2002 by various organizations domestically and internationally. An exhaustive list of references is available upon request.
Why is measuring satisfaction, engagement, and well-being in and of itself not sufficient?
Strictly speaking, a measurement of satisfaction, engagement, and well-being already provides a great deal of information. But in practice, it now proves difficult to determine what should be prioritized and what has the greatest impact on overall employee engagement, satisfaction, and well-being based solely on this information.
This underscores the great importance of also surveying employees about where their priorities lie.
Don’t the results of the importance score provide sufficient information to prioritize things?
Explicitly asking about the “Importance” of the various aspects of working life is good—but not good enough. To determine the “Urgency Score” of a particular segment of an organization or company, McMe uses both the Importance Score and the “Uniqueness Score.” After all, it is more than worthwhile not only to find out what matters to employees, but also to identify which aspects they perceive as unique about their own organization—and which aspects other organizations, where they might work, are seen as unique.
Stress, for example, scores high on Importance in many companies. But it is often perceived as low on Urgency because in most work environments and most companies there is, after all, a heavy workload and/or time pressure.
Within the McMe method, the combined result of Importance and Uniqueness is the way to determine Urgency and thus to prioritize.
How do the Uniqueness scores compare to the classic benchmark?
Uniqueness is also an excellent “internal” benchmark. It shows how employees perceive their current employer and benchmark it against other – potential – employers:
Additionally, McMe also provides the classic benchmark, in which your organization’s or company’s scores are compared with the averages of a sector or industry. Over the years, we have built a database that allows us to measure your company in terms of satisfaction, engagement, and well-being against other similar companies.
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All McMe measurements can be regarded as a class consisting of five groups: very dissatisfied (red), dissatisfied (orange), normally satisfied (yellow), satisfied (dark-green), very satisfied (light-green). The extremes of the scales are the lowest score and the highest score ever recorded by McMe. The further breakdown is as follows.
When the red zone, for example, is larger than the yellow zone (as with “Task”), this indicates that there remains very wide variation among the scores of the bottom 6.5%. The values of the large middle group, by contrast, lie very close together, even though many more organizations fall into that zone than into the red zone. The benchmarks thus indicate, for each of the seven factors, which group the organization belongs to. In addition, you can compare your organization’s results within its own sector, since you also receive information on how your sector scores in the benchmarks.
Why is a holistic approach preferable to a fragmented one that zooms in on specific aspects such as stress, leadership, engagement, …?
A holistic approach has two key advantages.
First, it makes it possible to see the interrelationships: for example, if someone is highly satisfied with their task and can carry it out in a positive, collegial atmosphere, then stress will be much less of a concern.
Secondly, it makes it possible to see the interconnections: for example, if there is a problem with the support from one’s immediate supervisor, you can assess how much this affects, say, task clarity, teamwork, etc., and thus far better gauge the seriousness of the situation.
The standard McMe question sets?
Standaard focust McMe zich op 7 dimensies en 34 onderliggende variabelen. Dit
noemen we de kern van de McMe.
1. De Belangrijkheidsvraag polst naar de motivaties (generiek) om te werken.
2. De Uniekheidsvraag geeft aan hoe medewerkers hun organisatie vergelijken met
andere potentiële werkgevers.
3. De Tevredenheidsvragen geven aan of medewerkers al dan niet tevreden zijn
met de situatie.
4. Ook de Betrokkenheid en het Welzijn van de medewerkers bij hun organisatie en de mate waarin
zij ambassadeurs zijn (employer branding) worden standaard bevraagd.
5. Een aantal exit-vragen geven aan in hoeverre respondenten het initiatief en de
vorm van bevraging hebben gewaardeerd en of zij al dan niet bereid zijn om in
de toekomst nog deel te nemen.
Can we tailor this question set to our needs by, for example, adding some questions and removing others?
No, the core questions form a well-thought-out, validated, and coherent whole. As a result, McMe measures exactly what it is designed to measure. This is also why McMe’s core questions enable benchmarking. Therefore, you cannot remove or add questions to them.
However, additional questions can always be added.
Can we change the terminology used? And if so, where and how?
Yes. The terminology can be adjusted in consultation and tailored to the organization’s reality. For example, you might choose to use “team leader” or “head nurse” instead of “direct supervisor.”
Is McMe compliant with the legal obligations regarding the prevention of work-related psychosocial stress? (Royal Decree of 17 May 2007, Article 3)
The standard McMe questionnaire, together with the competent prevention adviser, enables you to conduct a risk analysis and implement appropriate preventive measures aimed at preventing work-related psychosocial stress.
McMe specifically takes into account situations in which stress, conflicts, violence, bullying or unwanted sexual behavior are present at work. The survey provides the following information:
The results for stress, bullying, and unwanted intimacies are interpreted as follows:
In which languages is the McMe questionnaire available?
The core questions of McMe are available in Dutch, French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, and Polish.
What are the options for enriching the standard McMe question set with optional question batteries and/or company-specific questions?
McMe komt met een aantal optionele vragenbatterijen die net zoals de standaard
McMe vragenbatterijen gevalideerde batterijen zijn. De optionele vragenbatterijen
kunnen bepaalde aspecten uit de kern uitdiepen. Maar sommige optionele vragen-
batterijen zijn er ook op gericht aspecten die niet in de kern voorkomen te bevra-
gen.
Daarnaast kan u, indien u wenst, bedrijfseigen vragen laten toevoegen aan de be-
vraging.
Via “routing”, hetzij op de ID-vragen hetzij in functie van antwoordgedrag worden
bepaalde vragen al dan niet geactiveerd. Hiermee kan men vermijden dat de res-
pondent geconfronteerd wordt met voor hem niet-relevante vragen.
How many of those optional and company-specific questions can be added?
Theoretically, you can add as many questions as you like. However, to maintain the reliability of the responses, you must ensure that the questionnaire isn’t too long to prevent respondents from dropping out or providing inaccurate answers. We recommend capping the average completion time at around 30 minutes. Completing the core questions takes, on average, 20 minutes.
The following optional question batteries are available:
What added value do optional and company-specific questions provide in relation to the information yielded by the McMe core questions?
The McMe core questions already provide a very comprehensive picture—both in breadth and in depth—of what is happening within the organization. Yet it is sometimes worthwhile to supplement the core with optional and/or company-specific questions:
Either to deepen aspects already covered in the core. For example, you might include questions about communication at different levels within your organization or company: bottom-down, bottom-up, horizontal.
Or to address related aspects. For example, you can include questions about the internal perception of quality.
Or to map very specific, company-specific issues—for example, the internal perception of a change process that has been initiated.
Conducting a survey in the midst of a change process is not advisable, because the uncertainty induced by such a process very often has a negative impact on satisfaction, engagement, and well-being.
However, it may be relevant to measure employees’ attitudes and behavior toward the change process during the process itself with respect to the following critical questions:
Response and anonymity
Is the system still anonymous if only employees who have not yet completed the questionnaire receive a reminder?
Yes. The server assigns a code to each email address, allowing it to track who has already completed the survey and who has not. This system has no impact whatsoever on the confidentiality of the submitted data.
Is the system still anonymous if I have to enter a code and respondents are asked for so many personal variables?
Yes. The use of an individual code is necessary to ensure that surveys can be paused by the respondent and later resumed from where they left off. This code in no way compromises the privacy or confidentiality of the information collected. Furthermore, personal variables are often needed in analysis to determine whether there are differences between business units, within business units, between men and women, between managers and non-managers, etc. And this is in virtually all cases highly relevant—especially in organizations where, due to significant differences at the team level, it is essential to drill down to the team level to conduct an accurate and action-oriented analysis.
How can one optimize the response rate?
The average response rate for online McMe surveys is around 80%. This high score is the result of a number of guiding principles and actions taken: Employees must have confidence in the confidentiality of the system and the procedures followed. McMe produces results only for groups with at least nine respondents. Statistically, it is then impossible to trace who said what.
