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Press release

Why are companies failing to engage employees?

New report highlights need for effective action planning on survey results

London, 19 May 2011 - A new original HR insight paper published today by leading HR consultancy ETS reveals that a number of organisations are failing to get proper value from employee engagement surveys. ‘How to maximise survey success through action planning’ explains how many organisations are not seeing the full business return on their investment in engagement surveys due to ineffective action plans.

Hannah Stratford, Head of Business Psychology at ETS and co-author of the report, comments:

Despite employee engagement being a top business priority and there being widespread buy-in at boardroom-level, employee surveys are still not delivering full value for many companies. From our experience working on employee surveys with partners like ITV and G4S, companies that get the action planning process right are able to maintain momentum on survey actions and improve business metrics. Companies must ensure action planning is an integral part of the engagement programme throughout the process rather than just an after-thought at the end.

Of the organisations ETS spoke to about employee engagement, the single biggest challenge HR practitioners reported was: how to motivate the business to take effective action on survey results.

This report includes a practical guide for companies, outlining four key areas for action planning that should be considered throughout the survey process. The paper also includes some practical examples from senior level HR practitioners, giving an insight into employee engagement approaches being used successfully by other private sector companies.

Helen Read, Employee Insight Leader, RSA, explains how the financial services firm have used survey output to inform business change and how the perception of action planning has changed within the organisation:

Encouraging more dialogue within teams has helped establish a natural feel to engagement. Managers and their teams are not simply 'doing' engagement, but are having targeted discussions on key issues. Action planning is now seen as part of people’s day job rather than an additional activity, and an increase in engagement has followed.