ILRHR556: Strategic Engagement...ILRHR556: Strategic Engagement This course includes • Two discussions • Eight tools to download and use on the job • One scored project in multiple

ILRHR556: Strategic Engagement

This course includes

• Two discussions

• Eight tools to download and use on the job

• One scored project in multiple parts

• One video transcript file

Completing all of the coursework should take about five to seven hours.

What you'll learn

• Determine how engagement manifests in observable employee behavior

• Examine how engagement predicts organizational performance

• Audit your organization's current relevant practices

• Outline a plan for interpreting your engagement data so that you can drive realorganizational change

• Examine the existing workplace factors that may be at the root of sub-optimal levels ofengagement

Course Description

In recognition of the strong association between employee engagement and performance, many companies have used or considered engagement surveys. Students will identify the types of surveys available, explore the importance of aligning engagement with their organizations' strategic goals, review data collection and analysis considerations, and consider methods of using engagement data to drive organizational change at the line-manager and broader organizational levels.

Why do the drivers of engagement need to be integrated into all of your HR efforts? In companies where 60-70% of employees are engaged, shareholder returns are approximately 24%. Compare that to companies with only 50-60% of employees engaged: shareholder returns are as low as approximately 5%. Similarly, teams with high engagement experience 4.1% turnover, as opposed to approximately 14.5% turnover for teams with low engagement. Unfortunately, research across companies, industries, and countries shows that only 11-19% of employees are highly engaged; 40-70% are neutral, and 10-20% are actively disengaged. Discretionary effort can be as much as 50% lower among disengaged employees. These figures clearly illustrate the significant impact that managers and HR professionals can have if they better understand what impacts the engagement of employees.

In this course, you will examine the foundational drivers of engagement, both psychological and behavioral, and also explore the components of successful engagement initiatives. You will examine how organizations that are recognized as leaders in this field integrate practices that heighten employee engagement, and find ways to adapt those best practices for their own use. Cornell University Professor Lisa Nishii offers a research-based learning experience that can position leaders to more effectively navigate the popular (but often misunderstood) area of employee engagement.

Lisa H. Nishii, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Human Resource Studies Director, International Programs,

School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University

Lisa H. Nishii, Ph.D. joined the faculty of the Human Resource Studies department at the ILR School, Cornell University after receiving her Ph.D. and M.A. in Organizational Psychology from the University of Maryland, and a B.A in economics from Wellesley College.

Nishii is an expert on inclusion in organizations. Her research focuses on the confluence of organizational practices, leadership behaviors, and climate for inclusion on individual- and group-level outcomes. Using multi-level and multi-method research designs across a number of large-scale federally funded projects, she has found that leaders play an important role in shaping inclusion. In particular, the extent to which leaders role model inclusive behaviors, clarify the learning and innovation benefits of diversity for the group’s work, and set strong norms related to interpersonal interactions, determines the

inclusiveness of their workgroup climates. In turn, workgroup climate has important implications for the authenticity of the relationship that group members develop, the positive versus negative quality of relational ties, the information that is shared among group members, the extent of conflict that is experienced, and ultimately the creativity, financial performance, and turnover rates associated with these groups. Workgroup climate also impacts individual-level experiences of discrimination versus inclusion, as well as engagement and performance. Nishii’s earlier research focused primarily on diversity in individual-level cognition and behavior as determined by national culture.

Nishii actively publishes in top-tier journals, including the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and Science, and serves on the editorial boards for AMR, AMJ, and JAP. She is currently the Chair of the Academy of Management’s Gender and Diversity in Organizations Division, and the Chair of the ILR School’s International Programs. She serves on a variety of college and university-level councils for diversity, globalization, and engaged learning. Nishii also consults with multinational companies, primarily related to diversity and inclusion and organizational assessment.

Table of ContentsSyllabus

Course Modules

Module 1: Define Engagement

1. Module Introduction: Define Engagement2. Watch: Define Engagement3. Read: What the Research Says About Engagement4. Watch: Examine Disengagement5. Tool: The Checklist of Behaviors Indicating Disengagement6. Watch: Engagement vs. Other Attitudes7. Describe Your Observations8. Module Wrap-up: Define Engagement

Module 2: Get Ready to Survey

1. Module Introduction: Get Ready to Survey2. Watch: Two Forms of Engagement "Energy"3. Watch: The Three Engagement Drivers4. Read: The Three Drivers in Detail5. Tool: Audit Your Practices6. Read: The Readiness of Leaders7. Watch: Survey Design and Relevant Group

Comparisons8. Tool: Recommended Engagement Survey Questions9. Watch: Survey Design (Anonymous or Confidential?)10. Read: The Pros and Cons of "Off-the-Shelf" vs Custom11. Tool: The "Before You Survey" Checklist12. Course Project, Part One: Get Ready to Survey13. Module Wrap-up: Get Ready to Survey

Module 3: Interpret the Results

1. Module Introduction: Interpret the Results2. Activity: Which Survey Items Are the Most Important?

3. Watch: Analyzing Data4. Watch: Analyzing the Relative Importance of Drivers5. Watch: Considering the Nuances6. Watch: Smart, Evidence-based Management7. Tool: Worksheet for Analyzing Data8. Read: Best HR Practices of Highly Engaged

Organizations9. Course Project, Part Two: Interpret the Results

10. Module Wrap-up: Interpret the Results

Module 4: Take Key Steps to Success

1. Module Introduction: Take Key Steps to Success2. Read: The Five Ways to Promote Accountability3. Watch: The Value of Linkage Research4. Watch: Coaching Line Managers to Leverage Engagement

Data5. Tool: Professor Nishii’s Recommended Actions for Managers6. Promoting Accountability for Engagement7. Tool: Borrowing Success8. Course Project, Part Three: Take Key Steps to Success9. Module Wrap-up: Take Key Steps to Success

10. Tool: Strategic Engagement Action Plan11. Read: Thank You and Farewell12. Stay Connected

SyllabusNo due dateCourse Project, Part One: Get Ready to Survey Course Project, Part Three: Take Key Steps to Success Course Project, Part Two: Interpret the Results

Back to Table of Contents

Module 1: Define Engagement1. Module Introduction: Define Engagement2. Watch: Define Engagement3. Read: What the Research Says About Engagement4. Watch: Examine Disengagement5. Tool: The Checklist of Behaviors Indicating Disengagement6. Watch: Engagement vs. Other Attitudes7. Describe Your Observations8. Module Wrap-up: Define Engagement


Module Introduction: Define Engagement

Define Engagement

Satisfaction and commitment are not what drive sustained organizationalperformance; rather, it is employee engagement that really makes thedifference. Engagement is not just another popular buzzword. It is criticalfor HR leaders to develop a nuanced understanding of what engagement is,and how it can be fostered through effective management strategies.

In this module, you will examine that critical concept, "engagement," anddetermine how it manifests in observable employee behavior. You will identify howengagement predicts organizational performance. You will explore what engagement looksand feels like through conducting a self-assessment. You will hear from Cornell UniversityILR School Professor Lisa Nishii on the research behind the business case for improvingengagement. You will distinguish between engagement and employee attitudes such asorganizational satisfaction, commitment, and pride, and you will review research datarelated to engagement.

Back to Module 1: Define Engagement


Watch: Define Engagement

Define Engagement

What do we mean by "engagement"? Is it more than just a vague buzzword for happyemployees? In this video, Professor Nishii explains the deep research underlyingengagement, and how it relates to critical organizational goals and business needs.



Read: What the Research Says About Engagement

What the Research Says About Engagement

Engagement refers to purpose,focused energy, and flow

Engaged people pouredthemselves into work

Engagement is clearlydistinguished from workaholism

What does "engagement" really mean? Let's look at what some of the research has to say.It refers to "an individual’s sense of purpose and focused energy, evident to others in thedisplay of personal initiative, adaptability, effort, and persistence directed towardorganizational goals,” (Macey, Schneider, Barbera, Young, 2009).

Engagement refers to “the employment and expression of a person’s preferred self…people who are engaged keep their selves within a role, without sacrificing one for theother.” (Kahn, 1990, p.700). The premise is that engaged people pour their personalcognitive, physical, and emotional energies into their work, as manifested in effort,involvement, flow, mindfulness, and intrinsic motivation. The idea is that when people areengaged, they bring their real identity, thoughts, and feelings to bear on their work such thattheir true self and their work role merge and people drive their true self into their roles, andtheir true self gets expressed within their role. In other words, a job is not just a job, but isan authentic extension of one's self.

The investment of physical energy translates into an increased display of organizationallyvalued behaviors.The investment of cognitive energy promotes behavior that is more focused and mindful.The investment of emotional energy promotes increased connections with coworkers andgreater authenticity at work.

When someone is fully engaged in their work, you can see it clearly in their behavior. Theytend to be very focused and difficult to distract (because they want to be doing what they’redoing), they take lots of initiative to make sure things go well because they genuinely care,they dedicate a lot of energy to their work without it feeling like a burden, and they persisteven in the face of obstacles, again because their work is an important part of their identityand self-expression.

It is important to distinguish engagement from "workaholism," or working excessively andcompulsively. Research suggests that the more engaged employees are, the harder theywork, the better they feel, and the better they perform. Although workaholism is alsorelated to working hard and performing well, it is additionally associated with poor well-being (Schaufeli, Taris Bakker, 2006).



Watch: Examine Disengagement

Examine Disengagement

It's important to know what disengagement looks like. People who are disengaged are notvigilant about quality. They tend to be satisfied with "good enough." They are also much lesslikely to innovate. When people "withdraw," they remove personal energies; you can seethis when people become robotic in their work, are apathetic or detached, and are burnedout or effortless. When people disengage and become defensive, they hide their trueidentity, thoughts, and feelings; people go through the motions of work, but do not give ofthemselves in their work. They are driven more by what they have to do than by what theywant to do, as Professor Nishii explains.



Tool: The Checklist of Behaviors Indicating Disengagement

The Checklist of Behaviors Indicating Disengagement

Use this helpful Checklist ofBehaviors IndicatingDisengagement to identifywhether disengagement behaviorsare present

Use this checklist to identify signs of disengagement within a work group. You may chooseto use this as a self-reflection activity (assessing yourself and your own behavior, to furtherunderstand how disengagement manifests) or use it as a tool to assess the behaviors of anindividual direct report or across a team or work group. The goal of this exercise is not tocriticize or find fault with people’s behavior, but to deepen your understanding of thebehaviors that indicate disengagement. It will also help you develop hypotheses about whypeople may have become disengaged, and what influential strategies you might recommendfor line managers to improve people’s level of engagement.



https://s3.amazonaws.com/ecornell/content/ILRHR/ILRHR556/ilrhr556_tool-checklist-of-behaviors.pdf

Watch: Engagement vs. Other Attitudes

Engagement vs. Other Attitudes

It's critical to distinguish between engagement and other employee attitudes such asorganizational satisfaction, commitment, and pride, as Professor Nishii explains. Measuresof employee attitudes like satisfaction or pride to work for the company tell us nothing abouthow absorbed employees are in the work that they do, nor about the extent of discretionaryeffort they are investing in their work.



Describe Your Observations

Instructions:

You are required to participate meaningfully in at least two discussions in this course.

Discussion topic:

Everyone has had some experience with a colleague, subordinate, or superior who wasengaged and, unfortunately, with at least one who was disengaged. Reflect on thoseexperiences as you create a post in which you respond to the following:

Describe some of the behaviors you observe from highly engaged employees and some ofthe behaviors you observe from employees who are not highly engaged, or even activelydisengaged.What are some of the key differences you see between employees who are highly engagedversus those who are not?How do you see those engagement-associated behaviors as being influential in yourworkplace? Do you see them affecting other critical aspects of work such as group morale,service standards, or productivity?

To participate in this discussion:

Click Reply to post a comment or reply to another comment. Please consider that this is aprofessional forum; courtesy and professional language and tone are expected. Beforeposting, please review eCornell's policy regarding plagiarism (the presentation of someoneelse's work as your own without source credit).



https://s3.amazonaws.com/ecornell/global/eCornellPlagiarismPolicy.pdf

Module Wrap-up: Define Engagement

Define Engagement

In this module, you examined the critical concept of engagement and determined how itmanifests in observable behavior. You identified how engagement predicts performance.You heard from Cornell University ILR School Professor Lisa Nishii on the research behindthe business case for improving engagement. You distinguished between engagement andrelated employee attitudes such as organizational satisfaction, commitment, and pride. Youhad an opportunity to participate in a discussion on observed engagement anddisengagement behaviors, and to review significant research data related to engagement.As you saw in this module, it is engagement, and not satisfaction or commitment, thatpredicts performance, and it is critical for HR leaders to understand it.



Module 2: Get Ready to Survey1. Module Introduction: Get Ready to Survey2. Watch: Two Forms of Engagement "Energy"3. Watch: The Three Engagement Drivers4. Read: The Three Drivers in Detail5. Tool: Audit Your Practices6. Read: The Readiness of Leaders7. Watch: Survey Design and Relevant Group

Comparisons8. Tool: Recommended Engagement Survey Questions9. Watch: Survey Design (Anonymous or Confidential?)10. Read: The Pros and Cons of "Off-the-Shelf" vs Custom11. Tool: The "Before You Survey" Checklist12. Course Project, Part One: Get Ready to Survey13. Module Wrap-up: Get Ready to Survey


Module Introduction: Get Ready to Survey

Get Ready to Survey

Engagement is a critical concept for HR leaders and for organizations whoseek to derive the maximum value from their employees' available talents,skills, and energy. Most organizations are already conducting employeeengagement surveys to identify opportunities for improvement. Now you willhave a chance to get even greater value from your efforts by identifyingways in which your company’s existing approaches could possibly beimproved.

In this module, you will access two critical tools that will guide your practical efforts:one that will help you audit your current practices, and a checklist to complete before you launch another engagement survey. You will read critical research related to the readiness of leaders and to the relative merits of two common types of surveys: anonymous and confidential. You will hear from Professor Lisa Nishii on survey design considerations and on the common, but unhelpful, tendency to overemphasize the importance of benchmarking external data from other organizations.

Back to Module 2: Get Ready to Survey


Watch: Two Forms of Engagement "Energy"

Two Forms of Engagement "Energy"

There are two forms of engagement “energy," as Professor Nishii explains: psychologicalenergy and behavioral energy. Psychological energy refers to psychological absorption andfocus. Being fully absorbed in one’s work comes close to what has been called “flow,” astate of optimal experience that is characterized by focused attention, clear mind, mind andbody union, effortless concentration, complete control, loss of self-consciousness, distortionof time, and intrinsic enjoyment. Behavioral energy refers to people's actions. It may beuseful to keep in mind that sometimes people experience psychological and behavioralengagement in some, but not all, aspects of their jobs.



Watch: The Three Engagement Drivers

The Three Engagement Drivers

There are three key drivers of engagement, as Professor Nishii explains. They arepsychological meaningfulness (having a reason to engage); psychological safety(experiencing the freedom and safety to engage); and psychological availability (having thecapacity to engage). These are the conditions that must be met in order for employees tobe engaged, and each has significant implications, as you will see.



Read: The Three Drivers in Detail

Examine the Three Drivers in Detail

Psychological meaningfulness:having a reason to engage

Psychological safety: having thefreedom and safety to engage

Psychological availability: havingthe capacity to engage

Now you will examine in detail the three drivers for engagement. These drivers, orconditions, need to be met in order for employees to be able to fully engage in their work.Each of them has elements that can be influenced by line managers.

Psychological Meaningfulness

Psychological meaningfulness is described as "having a reason to engage." This dimensionis about work elements. It involves structuring jobs so that they have high “motivatingpotential,” or are challenging, meaningful, and provide opportunities for autonomy andinvolve specific and difficult goals. It also involves treating employees in a way thatreinforces their natural tendency to reciprocate (i.e., principles of social exchange). If yougive people challenging and meaningful work and set them up for success, they willreciprocate.

Two key sets of work factors are influential here:

1. The motivating potential of one’s job, as determined by job characteristics:

Challenge and variety: When jobs fail to provide both challenge and variety in the tasksinvolved, it is easier for employees to become bored and/or robotic in the way that theyapproach their work.Significance: Jobs are more motivating when people are able to see the significance orimpact of their work for others (or for the company at large). When people can see howothers depend on their efforts, they tend to be more motivated in their work.Autonomy and control: The more latitude that people have to channel their energiesproductively to continuously improve the way they do their work, the more they will actuallydo so.Clarity: Being unclear about performance expectations is frustrating, and can make it

difficult for employees to know whether an investment of their energies will lead to desiredoutcomes.Feedback and rewards: Feedback about the specific behaviors that are highly valuedhelps people to direct their energy more meaningfully. When combined with formal andinformal recognition for good work, employees are more likely to feel that their investmentin doing good work is worthwhile.Fit and identification: People tend to experience greater pleasure and fulfillment fromwhat they do if they are in jobs or roles that match their interests, values, strengths, andskills.

2. Meaningful work interactions:

Rewarding and meaningful interpersonal connections: The quality of one’s relationshipswith coworkers determines whether they feel they can contribute meaningfully to thegroup’s work (versus feeling taken for granted).Being seen as a person, not merely as a job incumbent: Does one feel worthwhile,useful, and valuable? Does one feel that her efforts are noticed and appreciated?Coworker coordination and support: Poor coordination with, and a lack of support from,coworkers can thwart the outcomes associated with people’s efforts to do their jobs well,thereby making it less meaningful for people to invest their energy.

One thing to keep in mind is that when people are matched to tasks based on assumptionsthat others have about what they can and cannot do (stereotypes), they may experiencelower levels of fit because stereotype-based assumptions are often incorrect. We oftensee, for example, that employees with disabilities, and sometimes also older workers andwomen, report experiencing lower levels of fit.

Psychological Safety

Psychological safety involves people experiencing the freedom and safety to engage (ratherthan being focused on protecting themselves). This dimension is about social elements. Itinvolves developing high-trust relationships.

Simply put, without trust and fair treatment, engagement cannot exist. A lack of trust inmanagement, the “system,” or coworkers, or conversely a sense of not feeling trusted bymanagement, can erode engagement. Employees need to be able to trust that the way thatdecisions are made within their organization is transparent and fair. Employees must feelthat managers seem human, and moreover, managers must build trust with their employeesby doing what they say they will do. Managers can also influence psychological safety byseeking feedback from employees about how well they as managers are doing – doing socommunicates that they trust and value employee input. Also, when leaders admit to theirown mistakes, they help to promote a climate where employees experience psychologicalsafety.

Employees look for clues about whether it’s safer for them to be silent or whether they canreally speak up. Is management (or a specific manager) actually listening to understandwhat employees have to say, recognizing the possibility that they might learn something bylistening to employees? If the answer is yes and employees feel like they are treated as“content providers,” then they tend to feel much more energized about engaging themselvesin these conversations and in crafting their work. They are less likely to be distracted byfear of punishment.

Diversity and inclusion issues are particularly relevant for experiences of psychologicalsafety. Members of historically marginalized groups often feel pressure to assimilate (inother words, to limit the expression of how they may be different from the dominant ingroupin order to fit in), and may also feel that they are judged in stereotypic ways. If they alsolack role models in senior levels of the organization, they may conclude that there is aliability associated with their membership in a minority group and feel more “on guard” aboutfully expressing and engaging themselves at work.

Psychological Availability

Psychological availability involves having the capacity to engage. This dimension has to dowith an employee’s individual circumstances. Individual distractions may leave people withmore or fewer resources with which to engage. Research by Sonnentag (2003) has shownthat there are daily fluctuations in one’s engagement at work, with evidence thatengagement is related both to engagement experienced during the prior day but also to theopportunities one has for recovery in the non-work domain. However, psychologicalavailability involves not just protecting employees’ efforts to renew personal energy throughwork-life balance but also providing employees with the kind of learning opportunities andfeedback that allow them to feel confident about investing themselves in their work.Insecurity creates anxiety, which consumes energy that could otherwise be used forengagement. Instead of spending energy worrying about it, they can just do it.



Tool: Audit Your Practices

Audit Your Practices

Use this Audit Your Practices Toolto determine if you have clearlydefined and communicated whatengagement means

Another way to think about this is by asking the question: is your organization getting themost value out of its investment in engagement initiatives? The strategic engagementbehaviors that are important for an organization are those that reflect its specificorganizational and strategic context. Download the Audit Your Practices tool to get areading on how clearly your organization has articulated and communicated what strategicengagement means for you.

It will also be helpful to define the behaviors that you hope to see expressed throughgreater engagement. In highly regulated and predictable environments, increases inengagement might be expressed through greater effort on core task performance. In highlyuncertain environments, increases in engagement might motivate proactive behavior. Inhighly interdependent environments, increases in engagement might produce greaterteamwork or organizationally directed behaviors. Organizations that are strategicallyfocused on innovation should be assessing whether, for example, employees maintain theirfocus on developing new products and services even when they encounter problems anddistractions. In organizations focused on minimizing costs, the focus instead should be onwhether employees propose new ways to reduce costs and be more efficient even in theface of obstacles. All of this context is relevant and important for your organization toconsider.



https://s3.amazonaws.com/ecornell/content/ILRHR/ILRHR556/ilrhr556_tool-audit-your-practices.docx

Read: The Readiness of Leaders

The Readiness of Leaders

Ask questions to assess leaders'readiness

An engaged workforce takesengagement seriously

Engagement requires involvement throughout the organization and requires, especially, thecommitment of senior leaders. Issues related to leadership matter; an engaged workforcecannot exist in the absence of leaders and managers who take employee engagementseriously.

A critical factor in the ultimate effectiveness of engagement initiatives is the readiness ofleaders. As you try to examine your organization and assess the readiness of your leaders,it will be useful for you to ask the following questions:

Do leaders show, through their behavior, that they believe in the importance of engagementand understand that they need to treat the organization like an unfinished prototype?Do they understand the role that they play in promoting or hindering employeeengagement? What do employees think about whether management will take action basedon the results?A good survey provides data, but it's what the organization does with that data thatultimately matters. Have leaders been receptive to feedback in the past? (In other words:do employees have reason to believe that the organization will follow through on what theengagement survey data suggests?)Have they shown that they want to learn from what employees have to say, so that they cancontinue to improve the organization?And finally, is the survey being administered in a way that makes all employees feelcomfortable participating and providing their candid feedback?



Watch: Survey Design and Relevant Group Comparisons

Survey Design and Relevant Group Comparisons

You want to design your employee engagement surveys in a thoughtful, strategic way. Thiswill help you be sure you really understand what the data means and help the organizationtake productive actions in response to it. One strategy that will help you do this is to link theengagement survey results to other HR data that you may already have on hand aboutemployees by different groupings when they are relevant, such as department, workassignments, and demographic variables.



Tool: Recommended Engagement Survey Questions

Recommended Engagement Survey Questions

Use the list of questions in thistool, Recommended EngagementSurvey Questions, when youdesign your survey

You can easily design an employee engagement survey that delves into each of the criticalareas of psychological and behavioral engagement. Use the tool on this page whendesigning your surveys. You can consider using some, or all, of the recommended questionshere verbatim. You may want to change the language slightly to more closely fit your ownwork group, but the key areas suggested here should be included. You may also want tosave this tool for future reference and reuse.



https://s3.amazonaws.com/ecornell/content/ILRHR/ILRHR556/ilrhr556_tool-recommended-engagement-survey-questions.pdf

Watch: Survey Design (Anonymous or Confidential?)

Survey Design (Anonymous or Confidential?)

People tend to use the words "anonymous" and "confidential" as if they mean the samething. In terms of employee engagement survey design, the two words are very different,and they will yield different results for an organization. There may be reasons that anorganization would choose one versus the other; you should be aware of what thedifferences are, as well as possible advantages and disadvantages.



Read: The Pros and Cons of "Off-the-Shelf" vs Custom

The Pros and Cons of "Off-the-Shelf" vs Custom

The forms of engagement surveyshave pros and cons

Consider your own organization'sneeds (and capabilities) whenchoosing

Engagement surveys can be done in two ways. You can purchase readily available, one-size-fits-all or "off the shelf" employee engagement surveys, or you can use custom-developed survey tools. If that's your choice, you might choose to work with an assessmentfirm to create your own survey, develop one in-house if you have the capability, or team upwith academics to create an effective survey tool. Some of the pros and cons of each arenoted below.

"Off-the-Shelf" Tools

Pros:

Easy to benchmark standardized resultsUseful to think of as a set of core items that remain constant over administrations of thesurveyYou can add an adaptable section that can be utilized to assess additional issues asneeded (i.e., as part of evidence-based management approach)An alternative: short pulse surveys on special topics as needed

Cons:

Less customized to your own needs unless it is possible to add an adaptable section toassess additional issues as needed (i.e., in addition to core items that remain constant overadministrations of the survey).

Custom Tools

Pros:

Can customize questions about strategic engagement behaviors for different segments ofworkforceCan tailor questions to your organization's needs (e.g., include more questions to assessstrategic initiatives of importance – like diversity and inclusion or innovation – than areusually contained in “off the shelf” surveys)

Examples of questions you might include in adaptable section:

employee reactions to recent large-scale changes (e.g., downsizing, merger/acquisition)

participation in particular organizational intervention (to then tie with engagement data toassess impact of participation on engagement)

Cons:

Results are more difficult to compare against peer companies



Tool: The "Before You Survey" Checklist

"Before You Survey" Checklist

The "Before You Survey"Checklist will help your leadershipteam make sure critical questionshave been considered

This checklist outlines a list of critical questions to discuss with your leadership team beforeyou survey your employees on their engagement. Ideally, you want to have a plan in placefor merging employee engagement data with other data you have in your HR systems, suchas which units they're in, who their line managers are, and what kinds of job roles they’re in.You also want to think about the initiatives that have been put in place to enhanceengagement to ensure that you will be able to identify who has and has not participated inthe initiative to see if their engagement levels differ (or to compare pre- and post-initiativeengagement scores collected from the same individuals across two time periods). Theultimate goal is to be able to analyze engagement data in a way that helps you to engage inevidence-based management to continually improve the way your company functions.



https://s3.amazonaws.com/ecornell/content/ILRHR/ILRHR556/ilrhr556_tool-the-before-you-survey-checklist.docx

Course Project, Part One: Get Ready to Survey

In this part of the course project, you will outline your plans as you get ready to conduct anemployee engagement survey within your organization. You will consider key questionsrelated to survey design, the type of survey you will choose and what questions to include.

Before you begin:

Before starting your work, please review the rubric (list of evaluative criteria) for thisassignment, and eCornell's policy regarding plagiarism (the presentation of someone else'swork as your own without source credit).

Instructions:

Download the "Strategic Engagement" Course Project.Complete Part One.Save your work locally. You will submit the completed project at the end of the course.This assignment is required for course completion.

Grading Type: Not Graded




https://s3.amazonaws.com/ecornell/content/ILRHR/ILRHR556/ilrhr556_strategic-engagement-course-project.docx

Module Wrap-up: Get Ready to Survey

Get Ready to Survey

Before you conduct another engagement survey, you want to position yourself for success by anticipating important considerations in survey design and leader readiness. In this module, you accessed two critical tools that will guide your practical efforts in terms of conducting employee engagement surveys: a tool that will help you audit your current practices, and a checklist to complete before you launch your next survey. You read critical research related to the readiness of leaders and to the relative merits of two common types of surveys: anonymous and confidential. You heard from Professor Lisa Nishii on survey design considerations and on the common, but unhelpful, tendency to overemphasize the importance of benchmarking external data from other organizations.



Module 3: Interpret the Results1. Module Introduction: Interpret the Results2. Activity: Which Survey Items Are the Most Important?3. Watch: Analyzing Data4. Watch: Analyzing the Relative Importance of Drivers5. Watch: Considering the Nuances6. Watch: Smart, Evidence-based Management7. Tool: Worksheet for Analyzing Data8. Read: Best HR Practices of Highly Engaged

Organizations9. Course Project, Part Two: Interpret the Results10. Module Wrap-up: Interpret the Results


Module Introduction: Interpret the Results

Interpret the Results

After an employee engagement survey is completed, what do you do withthe results? How can you drive organizational performance based on surveyresults? Analyzing and interpreting the results of an engagement survey iscritically important for HR leaders, as you will see in this module.

You will hear from Professor Lisa Nishii on how organizations can effectively analyze and interpret the data, and about the relative importance of different drivers of engagement. You will read about the best HR practices currently in use at other organizations and examine the ways that engagement can—and must—be an integrated part of an overall HR strategy. You will have access to a worksheet that will help you work through considerations of analyzing data. You will also have an opportunity to participate in a poll with your peers about which survey items are most important.

Back to Module 3: Interpret the Results


Activity: Which Survey Items Are the Most Important?

Which Survey Items Are the Most Important?

Highly effective organizations focus not only on engagement in a general way, but they tailortheir engagement efforts in order to maximize the results they get.

Consider what you think is most important in terms of focusing your energy and yourinvestment of resources as you answer the following question. Then you will be able tocompare your answer to that of your peers.

Pow ered by

Once you receive your survey results,where should you focus your attention?

You should focus on the survey items for which overall scores were the lowest. After all, the lowest scoreclearly indicates your biggest problem area.

You should focus on all the results equally. All responses are important.

You should focus on the items that are not only scored low but are also important to the organization and toemployees.

This form w as created inside of eCornell.

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Watch: Analyzing Data

Analyzing Data

You might make an automatic assumption that an organization should focus its resourcesand energy on the survey items which receive the lowest absolute score. But are the lowestscored items on the survey the most important to employees? Not necessarily, asProfessor Nishii explains. Employees may rate something poorly on the survey, but theyalso might not really care about it. You will want to analyze the data carefully to make surethere's a correlation between the survey items that are both scored low and that mattermost.



Watch: Analyzing the Relative Importance of Drivers

Analyzing the Relative Importance of Drivers

You don't need to become a statistician, but you should have a general understanding ofhow two common types of analyses are run on data related to survey results.



Watch: Considering the Nuances

Considering the Nuances

You can analyze engagement data so many different ways that it requires careful judgmentto decide: what comparisons and what variability will be most meaningful? You will want tothink carefully about what work groups to analyze together, and why you're looking at thedata aggregated that way, as you draw conclusions and make recommendations to linemanagers.



Watch: Smart, Evidence-based Management

Smart, Evidence-based Management

Using smart, evidence-based management in this context means that you engage in aniterative process of asking "Why?" This process will lead you to investigate the reasonsbehind the employee engagement data, so that you can identify the root causes ofproblems and make well-informed recommendations for actions that will yield productiveresults.



Tool: Worksheet for Analyzing Data

Worksheet for Analyzing Data

The Worksheet for Analyzing Datawill help you make plans for youyou will analyze and interpret thedata received

It is important for you to take into account the ways that you can analyze employeeengagement data. The Worksheet for Analyzing Data gives you a template for making plansfor analyzing your data effectively. It is recommended that you use this worksheet as a toolwithin your leadership group so that together you can discuss and manage questionsrelated to the drivers of engagement and where to focus your attention, energy, andresources.



https://s3.amazonaws.com/ecornell/content/ILRHR/ILRHR556/ilrhr556_tool-worksheet-for-analyzing-data.docx

Read: Best HR Practices of Highly Engaged Organizations

Best HR Practices of Highly Engaged Organizations

Highly engaged organizationsintegrate engagement into otherinitiatives

Engagement is part of broadstrategic initiatives, and not anisolated, discrete effort

The majority of highly engaged organizations indicate that they integrate employeeengagement programs with leadership development (82%), and that executives and seniormanagers are held accountable for acting on engagement survey results. Someorganizations (36%) also hold individual contributors accountable for acting on surveyresults.

A primary characteristic of “highly engaged” organizations is their alignment of business andengagement strategies. Several practices are used to explicitly link employees’ workbehaviors to business strategy. These include:

Hiring (careful selection of individuals who “fit” the mission and culture)OnboardingPerformance managementCommunication and storytellingCohort-based training programsGain-sharing programsEmpowermentRecognition programs (formal and informal)

As you build your strategic engagement plan, it will be helpful to review some of the bestpractices currently in place in some well-known organizations. Look at the ways in whichengagement is threaded through different kinds of routine HR activities at theseorganizations, and not isolated into discrete or separate initiatives.

Hiring

At the online shoe company Zappos, engagement principles are integrated into the hiringprocess. They conduct two sets of interviews to do careful selection of individuals who “fit”the mission and culture. First, they do the standard interviews that assess technical ability,

experience, and fit with the team. Then the HR department does a separate set ofinterviews purely for culture fit, and candidates must pass both in order to be hired. Thecompany has rejected many talented people who they felt would not fit the culture, which istheir number one priority. Once hired, new employees must attend a four-week onboardingprocess, during which they meet with departments to learn about initiatives, are educated inZappos culture and history, spend two weeks working in the call center (even if they werenot hired for that job) and build relationships through social activities. Then, at the end of theorientation period, new employees are given the opportunity to leave the company inexchange for one month’s pay, based on the employee’s position, if they do not think they fitwith the culture.

Onboarding

In the new hire orientation at DDI (Development Dimensions International, the HR andleadership development consultancy) the values and vision are explained through scenario-based teachings. Employees are placed in teams and given real company situations inwhich they must identify the values they should exhibit. Following orientation, employeescreate a development plan for their first six weeks at DDI. After the initial six weeks,managers work with employees to create a performance/development plan for the nextyear. These plans are aligned with at least one of the company’s strategic priorities soemployees can see and connect how their work directly contributes to organizationaloutcomes.

Performance Management

Some of the best corporate values are exhibited by Zappos. Here are four of their 10values; notice that they are very easy to understand and relate to: create fun and a littleweirdness; build open and honest relationships with communication; build a positive teamand family spirit; do more with less. Each core value is broken down into three behaviors,and an employee will ask up to 20 colleagues with whom he or she works closely to ratehow well he or she displays those behaviors.

Communication and Storytelling

At Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), a private non-profit university in the US, realstories of employee impact are collected from students or advisors that instill theuniversity’s cultural values in employees. Campus leaders use storytelling and studenttestimonials to highlight examples of mission-focused behaviors.

At Whole Foods, an American grocery store chain headquartered in Texas, storytelling is animportant part of their culture. Regional presidents share ideas, photos, and successes incompany newsletters.

Cohort-based Training

At the US Patent and Trademark Office, an agency of the US Department of Commercethat issues patents to inventors, they have a year-long "Patent Training Academy" thatbegins with four months of intensive training that teaches new employees how to be patentexaminers. Cohorts of approximately 130 examiners undergo the training together, and itprovides an opportunity for engagement from the very beginning of the employee lifecycle.The cohort establishes a sense of belonging for new employees and allows them to formrelationships and support networks early on.

Gain-sharing Programs

At Whole Foods, if a team is productive and spends less than was budgeted for labor, thedifference is returned to the team in the form of gain sharing dollars or additionalcompensation. This encourages them to really “own” the work that they do.

Empowerment

Many organizations empower employees to identify and act upon solutions that contributeto organizational objectives. Highly engaged organizations display a relative absence of “redtape” or rigid policies that inhibit innovation, cooperation, or responsiveness. For example,Alcoa, Inc., a lightweight metal manufacturer and the world's third largest producer ofaluminum, holds “road to engagement” webinars which feature the best action plans andare meant to facilitate quick and nimble sharing of best practices across plant locations andbusiness units.

At SNHU, autonomous departments are encouraged to promote their own governance andoperating models, in alignment with the university’s core values. This autonomy acceleratesinnovation and experimentation geared toward achieving and sustaining success.

At Whole Foods, regions and stores are free to innovate, with best ideas often coming fromthe store level. For example, a team member in a California store suggested opening a baron site, so the store opened a taproom. It shared photos across the network and now morethan 70 stores have taprooms.

Recognition Programs

At SNHU, leadership shares positive examples to inspire and drive organizational buy-in.This public recognition and acknowledgement of exemplary employee behavior, coupledwith a bonus and reward system that is above the industry norm, enhances the university’sculture of exceptional performance and a high level of employee engagement.



Course Project, Part Two: Interpret the Results

In this part of the course project, you will outline your plans as you get ready to interpret theresults of an employee engagement survey. What is the data telling you? What additionalquestions do you have to ask to uncover root causes of suboptimal engagement inemployee work groups? This critical work will position you to gain the maximum value foryour organization out of engagement efforts.

This part of the course project is the longest part of the project, with three substantialsections.

Before you begin:


Instructions:

Open your saved course project document.Complete Part Two.Save your work locally. You will submit the completed project at the end of the course.This assignment is required for course completion.

Grading Type: Not Graded




Module Wrap-up: Interpret the Results

Interpret the Results

It is important for HR leaders to have a plan in place for correctly analyzing the results of employee engagement surveys and to know what to do with the results so that they can help drive organizational performance. In this module, you heard from Professor Lisa Nishii on how organizations can effectively analyze and interpret the data, and about the relative importance of different drivers of engagement. You read about the best HR practices currently in use at other organizations, and to examine the ways that engagement can and must be an integrated part of an overall HR strategy. You accessed a worksheet that will help you work through considerations of analyzing data. You also had an opportunity to participate in a poll with your peers about which survey items are most important.



Module 4: Take Key Steps to Success1. Module Introduction: Take Key Steps to Success2. Read: The Five Ways to Promote Accountability3. Watch: The Value of Linkage Research4. Watch: Coaching Line Managers to Leverage Engagement

Data5. Tool: Professor Nishii’s Recommended Actions for Managers6. Promoting Accountability for Engagement7. Tool: Borrowing Success8. Course Project, Part Three: Take Key Steps to Success9. Module Wrap-up: Take Key Steps to Success

10. Tool: Strategic Engagement Action Plan11. Read: Thank You and Farewell12. Stay Connected


Module Introduction: Take Key Steps to Success

Take Key Steps to Success

As you have seen, there are specific and actionable steps that HR leaderscan take to drive greater organizational performance through employeeengagement survey data. Now you will have an opportunity to plan whatyou, and perhaps what you recommend that your team, will do as you moveforward.

In this module, you will hear from Professor Lisa Nishii on how, specifically, you can coachline managers to leverage engagement data in their routine work. Professor Nishii will alsodiscuss the value of linkage research and what that means for HR leaders. You will accesstwo helpful job aids: one in which you can "borrow" from the success of other organizationsby adapting their best practices for your own use, and one in which you will use ProfessorNishii's own recommended best practices as a foundation for your efforts. You will have anopportunity to discuss with your peers how you can promote leadership accountability.Finally, you will complete and submit your course project, which will outline in specific termswhat you will do as you put all of these elements together in a cohesive plan for drivingstrategic engagement results.

Back to Module 4: Take Key Steps to Success


Read: The Five Ways to Promote Accountability

The Five Ways to Promote Accountability

Senior leaders must be heldaccountable in order forengagement to improve

Employees that report they'veseen action taken after theprevious survey will report higherlevels of engagement

Quite simply, the key to making things happen in terms of improving engagement isaccountability. In what specific ways are leaders in your company held accountable forimproving engagement? Do senior leaders send a strong message about the importance ofengagement by holding themselves and other leaders throughout the organizationaccountable for people's results?

There are at least five key ways in which highly engaged organizations promoteaccountability for improving engagement scores:

First, they integrate goals for how to improve engagement scores into leaders' annualperformance or development plans and then hold them accountable for doing what they saythey're going to do.

Second, they expect leaders to be transparent with the survey results and have themdiscuss findings and develop action plans with their teams. Doing so communicates that thecompany is taking the process seriously and that, indeed, the data were collected to beused. The best companies have leaders at all levels of the company do this to ensure thatlocation-specific issues are explored and action plans developed accordingly. They do thisrather than adhere to a centralized approach that may not be suitable across differentcontexts or employee groups.

Third, they have leaders facilitate forums such as town hall meetings, business unitmeetings, and/or online discussion forums for sharing survey results. Such forums spurfront-line managers to own their results by talking about them and to own this action-planning process by creating a venue for dialogue and collaborative action planning.

Fourth, they ask employees to report whether their managers have actually taken action on

the previous engagement surveys results. Research shows that employees that report thatthey have seen action taken after the previous survey end up reporting higher levels ofengagement.

Finally, they also disseminate success stories. And they feature the best action plansthrough multiple communication channels to facilitate quick and nimble best-practice sharingwithin the company.



Watch: The Value of Linkage Research

The Value of Linkage Research

Linkage research can help your engagement efforts in a number of ways. By directly linkingengagement data with valued organizational outcomes like performance, customersatisfaction, sales, or turnover, you can increase buy-in within your organization about theimportance of paying attention to engagement. Ideally, you will also use linkage research todemonstrate how actions taken by the organization do indeed impact engagement scores(and therefore those other organizational outcomes that are valued). One generic but easyway of doing this is including a question on the engagement survey itself that asksemployees whether actions were taken based on the prior year’s survey results. Theengagement scores of employees who perceive actions to have been taken tend to behigher than employees who don’t think that actions have been taken. This data alone canhelp illustrate to leaders throughout the organization the importance of taking visible actionbased on survey results. Linking actions taken to changes in engagement can (and shouldideally) also be done in more targeted ways.

For example, suppose your engagement data reveal that a particular subgroup ofemployees lacks confidence in their ability to perform their work activities, and thereforereport lower engagement scores. Through an iterative process of inquiry, you realize that anew computer system has been implemented in this part of the organization, and yourhypothesis is that employees are experiencing difficulty acclimating to the new system. Theaction item that emerges as a result is to provide employee training on how to use thesystem. The targeted linkage you would therefore be interested in making is between the

implementation of training and future engagement scores. In order for training to have thisdesired effect, employees would have to: (a) participate in the training; (b) be givenopportunities to practice what they learn in training once they return to the job (otherwise, inthe face of work pressures, people often find that it is easier to simply revert to oldmethods or find work-arounds to the new system that they find difficult to navigate); and (c)be reinforced for their efforts to utilize the new training. Assessing these intermediary stepsin some way is critical. Otherwise, if even after implementing the training, scores do notimprove on the next engagement survey, you will have a hard time understanding why.



Watch: Coaching Line Managers to Leverage Engagement Data

Coaching Managers to Leverage Engagement Data

In order for your strategic engagement efforts to be successful, you have to get buy-in fromline managers. You have to coach your line managers so that they're ready to not onlyexamine your engagement data and understand what it means, but so that they can haveconversations with their employees about helpful changes they can make in order toimprove engagement.

No one affects the state of engagement more than an employee’s immediate leader. Mostpeople don’t leave their jobs; they leave their bosses, and highly engaged managers tend tohave more engaged direct reports.



Tool: Professor Nishii’s Recommended Actions for Managers



Promoting Accountability for Engagement

Instructions:

You are required to participate meaningfully in at least two discussions in this course.

Discussion topic:

Professor Nishii has specified five key ways in which leaders can promote accountability:

1. They integrate goals for how to improve engagement scores into leaders' annualperformance or development plans and hold them accountable for following through.

2. They expect leaders to be transparent with the survey results and have them discussfindings and develop action plans with their teams.

3. They invite leaders to facilitate forums such as town hall meetings, business unitmeetings, and/or online discussion forums for sharing survey results.

4. They ask employees to report whether their managers have actually taken action onthe previous engagement surveys' results.

5. They disseminate success stories.

Create a post in which you respond to the following:

Which of the five key steps listed here are currently being practiced within yourorganization?Choose one of the five key steps and describe your experience with it. How have you seenthis practiced well by leaders within your organization or within previous organizations?If none of the five key steps are being practiced within your organization, which do you thinkwould be the most important one to implement first, and why?

To participate in this discussion:

Click Reply to post a comment or reply to another comment. Please consider that this is aprofessional forum; courtesy and professional language and tone are expected. Beforeposting, please review eCornell's policy regarding plagiarism (the presentation of someoneelse's work as your own without source credit).




Tool: Borrowing Success

Borrowing Success

The Borrowing Success tool willhelp you adapt otherorganizations' best practices foryour own use

In this course, you have examined some of the best practices in use at organizations thathave a demonstrated commitment to excellence in engagement initiatives. What are theydoing well, and how can you leverage their success for your benefit? In the "BorrowingSuccess" tool, we have itemized some of the best practices currently in use atorganizations that are considered leaders in engagement. You can use this helpful job aidduring your planning and strategy sessions with other leaders within your company, and findways to adapt what's done well elsewhere to your own needs, mission, and culture. Werecommend saving this tool for future use as you continue to more fully integrateengagement work into all of your HR efforts.



https://s3.amazonaws.com/ecornell/content/ILRHR/ILRHR556/ilrhr556_tool-borrowing-success.pdf

Course Project, Part Three: Take Key Steps to Success

In this part of the course project, you will outline your plans for taking key steps to success.You will use Professor Nishii's recommended best practices for managers to identify whatyou, as an organization and within your HR team, could be doing better or for the first timeto improve engagement efforts. You will also review some of the specific best practices inuse at other organizations and make your plans for how you could adapt those practices foruse in your organization.

Instructions:

Open your saved course project document.Complete Part Three.Save your work.Submit the completed project here for instructor review and credit.This assignment is required for course completion.

Before you begin:


Grading Type: Pass/Fail

Points: 20

Submitting: Online Upload




Module Wrap-up: Take Key Steps to Success

Take Key Steps to Success

As you have seen, there are specific and actionable steps that HR leaders can take to drivegreater organizational performance through employee engagement survey data. In thismodule, you heard from Cornell University Professor Lisa Nishii on how, specifically, you cancoach line managers to leverage engagement data in their routine work. Professor Nishiialso discussed the value of linkage research and what that means for HR leaders. Youaccessed two helpful job aids: one which helps you "borrow" from the success of otherorganizations by adapting their best practices for your own use, and one which allows youto use Professor Nishii's own recommended best practices as a foundation for your efforts.You had an opportunity to discuss with your peers how you can promote leadershipaccountability. Your course project, which will outline in specific terms what you will do asyou put all of these elements together in a cohesive plan for driving strategic engagementresults, is the final outcome of your exploration into strategic engagement.



Tool: Strategic Engagement Action Plan

If you find it helpful to do so, you can use the Action Plan here to outline a plan for yourself that will guide your efforts within your own organization. The action plan on this page follows traditional "SMART" methodology to help you identify steps to take on the job that are specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, and time-based. You may choose to use it now as a tool for yourself, as a means of demonstrating to your manager or to peers how this course will influence your efforts on the job, or you may choose to save it and use it to guide your future work.



Lisa NishiiAssociate Professor

School of Industrial and Labor RelationsCornell University

Thank You and Farewell

Congratulations on completing Strategic Engagement. A critical factor in the ultimateeffectiveness of engagement initiatives is the readiness of leaders, and I hope you nowfeel comfortable being a more constructive partner with your team when it comes tomaking strategic decisions about engagement issues. I hope the material covered herehas met your expectations and prepared you to better meet the needs of yourorganization.

From all of us at Cornell University and eCornell, thank you for participating in thiscourse.

Sincerely,

Lisa Nishii

Read: Thank You and Farewell



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ILRHR556: Strategic Engagement...ILRHR556: Strategic Engagement This course includes • Two discussions • Eight tools to download and use on the job • One scored project in multiple

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