When researching for the best provider, HR Directors and CEOs first thoughts are often “how much does an employee engagement survey cost?” And the answer varies. From as little as £1 per person a month up to £20 or £30 per person each month, there’s a solution out there for everyone.
But many HR leaders have been too caught up on platforms and the data around employee engagement. What leaders need to do is look up from those dashboards and think about what is most important to their organisation.
A good place to start is to consider the overall cost of employee engagement beyond the platform. Usually, the query is flipped around to ask: what is the cost of poor employee engagement?
It’s well known that businesses cannot afford disengaged employees. Disengaged employees
are unhappy, demotivated, demoralised, less productive and much less likely to go above and beyond.
Many studies have tried to estimate the cost of disengagement. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2021, found that 85% of employees are not engaged or are actively disengaged at work. The analytics firm calculated the economic consequences of this global problem at approximately $7 trillion in lost productivity. Ouch!
Another question often posed is: what are the benefits of employee engagement?
Again, Gallup comes up with some clearly defined
answers. Those businesses who score in the top 25% for employee engagement enjoy:
- 41% lower absenteeism
- 21% higher profitability
- 17% higher productivity
- 20% higher sales
Even more striking are the Gallup statistics showing staff turnover is 59% lower in these businesses and there are a staggering 70% fewer employee safety incidents.
Countless surveys come to the same conclusion; there is a substantial cost to poor employee engagement. But that is not the question we asked in our headline.
The big question is, how much does an employee engagement survey cost and what should a company invest in their people if they are to make engagement a success?
What does employee engagement cost?
Focusing on employee engagement need not cost an arm or leg. In fact, there is plenty you can do without any expenditure at all.
All of the following can help build a positive culture and a sense of belonging – and all are free!
Communication
Keep your people involved and ensure they feel like they are part of the team. They want to know the impact their efforts have in achieving the organisation’s goals. People feel more secure in their role if there are robust communications channels.
Leadership
Ensuring your managers are also leaders will have a profound effect on morale. What does this mean? It means setting good examples, listening to team members, setting reasonable and achievable goals, having confidence in employees, and treating people with respect.
If you are the manager, don’t be the boss who creates a toxic atmosphere. Be the leader who inspires.
Appreciation
Employee engagement doesn’t cost anything when it comes to being respectful and polite to your team members. Saying thank you comes without an invoice.
People like to feel appreciated. When people work hard and it is nice to hear words of encouragement, and to feel that effort has been recognised.
Feedback
When people don’t receive timely and fair feedback, anxieties can set in. They worry that they aren’t doing the job well or they feel neglected. Let your people know how well they are doing; don’t just reserve feedback for jobs done badly. Feedback (acknowledgement) is just as important for work done well.
Mentoring
Use the experience in your organisation to help your team members grow. When senior and more experienced employees give advice and support to younger employees, it helps build self-confidence, job satisfaction and loyalty to the organisation. It also helps bonding within the team and can even help boost self-esteem.
Personal and professional development
Formal training schedules are a powerful method of helping employees grow, but there are activities that can be instigated without any direct employee engagement cost to the business. An informative leadership feature in Forbes suggests that organisations should foster a culture of learning. When a strong learning culture is embedded in the foundation of an organisation, more employees see the importance of continuous learning.
This can be implemented by ring-fencing time for employees to pick up new skills, encouraging people to discover how other departments work and setting learning goals. Why not ask people to do presentations on their interest and hobbies during lunch times?
Shared values
Many companies outline their purpose, vision and values on their website and promotional materials. But does your company live and breathe its values?
It is important to continuously reinforce and reiterate the organisation’s values – and ensure that everyone buys into them. Company values are not there to make the business sound ethical, they have to be rules the organisation lives by. When employees understand that the values are genuine, engagement follows.
Not everything in life is free
And not everything in life is expensive.
There are so many ways that that an employee engagement cost can be built within an organisation without any outlay, aside from time and commitment.
However, a truly effective employee engagement strategy needs direction and focus. Importantly, it needs to understand the needs and desires of the employees themselves.
WeThrive is here to help you identify who needs what help, why and specifically what to do next. We will uncover whether your people are thriving or just surviving.
WeThrive’s employee experience platform is powered by expert workplace psychologists, and offers employees instant personalised feedback, action plans, tools and resources they need to thrive
And how much does an employee engagement survey cost?
Our engagement surveys start at just £1 per employee per month. Plus you can get your first 10 employee Bubble accounts for free, allowing your people access to individual accounts where they can survey themselves at any time to receive instant personalised feedback for improvement, and get access to curated learning content.
We think your people are worth it. Do you?
