Frequently Asked Questions - Engagement | Department of Administration Human Resources

To start, we recommend working closely with your Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), HR team, or other survey points of contact to extract and share data based on the agency-designated organizational breakdowns that were requested for this survey. They are familiar with the naming conventions displayed in the breakdown fields to capture the complete set of results for a given organizational unit, such as a division or section. Once displayed in the dashboard, they will be able to assist in downloading the data to pdf, which can then be shared in digital or printed format with appropriate teams.

Once you have your data, use the engagement toolkit and its Quick-Start Guide and other resources to help you understand how to review and analyze your results data and plan next steps. A practical approach might be to assemble your leadership team to review the agency level heat maps and demonstrate how the assistant directors can use the breakdown navigation to look more closely at their own divisional results. As a leadership team, you would likely want to consider strategies for improving engagement in specific targeted areas. Again, the toolkit offers resources that can help you explore how you might want to approach this objective.

After the leadership team has agreed on its strategic direction for improving engagement, each division assistant director could then hold similar meetings with their management teams, again using subsequent breakdowns to examine sectional and possibly even unit-level data.

With respect to sharing results more broadly throughout your organization, you might consider having your HR and communications teams work together to summarize results, including general insight gleaned from the open comments, to tell your engagement “story.” In other words, apply some interpretation to what you have seen and indicate the direction and next steps your leadership will undertake.

While the engagement survey does result in a score, we generally recommend avoiding comparisons except when comparing one’s own score with prior years’. Various organizational units within your agency should not view engagement as a competition to outperform each other. Teams have their own unique characteristics and circumstances that can impact engagement. Ideally, your goal is to support all of your teams to be successful and maximally engaged to perform at their best. Creating opportunities for collaboration and idea sharing, of course, is strongly encouraged.

First, it’s important to communicate early and often so employees understand that their engagement is a priority for your agency. As leaders, you are responsible and accountable for your agency’s engagement, but you can’t do it alone. Insist that your managers involve team members in the development and implementation of the action plan. Here are some ideas to consider:

Employees like to know their feedback matters. Work with your communication team to track and publicize a record of your commitments made and kept (i.e., “You said, We did.”)
Once you have identified your leadership approach to improving engagement, make it an actionable plan with activities that can be managed and tracked, on team huddle boards for example.
Involve and leverage your “influencers” - respected colleagues who are good examples of engaged behavior.
Make employee engagement an intentional part of regular manager/employee 1:1 conversations.
Organize and conduct intersectional focus groups or engagement teams to cross pollinate ideas and encourage interaction outside the usual organizational silos.
Celebrate successes! Improving engagement is a never-ending goal, even for highly engaged teams. Engagement must be a core feature of your agency’s culture. It should never feel like a “bolt-on” or extra work.

The ADOA Employee Engagement website is a good place to start. You may also consult your agency Engagement Champion who may have answers or know how to reach out to ADOA for more insight.

When employees ask questions or offer feedback, it’s a positive sign that they are engaged and taking ownership for their work environment. They care enough to offer input or seek information for clarity.

It’s very important that leaders show respect for their people by listening to what’s being said, and to be timely and candid in their response. Receptivity fosters trust and feeling of psychological safety within organizations, whereas ignoring or discounting questions and feedback can be counterproductive and may result in disengagement or other undesirable outcomes. Employees are likely to feel more engaged when they feel that they’ve been heard, especially when their input helps drive positive change.

You are correct that sometimes there are no easy answers, or the answers you can provide are not what employees want to hear. In these cases, it’s best to be truthful and candid in delivering the hard news, but do so in a way that is positive and empathetic in tone. Thank the employee(s) for showing trust in you to discuss the situation. Ask employees what ideas they have as possible solutions.

Be receptive, listen for viable solutions and follow through if changes are possible. If the matter still cannot be solved, let the employee know and be sure to explain why. Then transition the conversation toward the employees. Ask what they need to accept this reality and move forward. Provide support and keep the lines of communication open. Taking such steps can lead to improved trust and enhanced engagement.

Open discussion is the best approach. Consider small group conversations. Share the annual survey participation rate for your agency (as compared to the overall State if the difference is significant), and why participation is important. For example, the survey provides employees the opportunity to share their sentiments on 14 core practices within their agency, and provide additional comments.

Share the Employee Engagement Quick Start Guide’s 4-Steps and explain the agency’s post-survey process (e.g. reviewing the survey results, reading all comments, involving employees and action planning to increase engagement, etc.). Lastly, genuinely ask employees to participate in future surveys, share feedback in 1:1’s and other 2-way communication vehicles within your agency, and include them in action planning so they can witness, first-hand, what happens with their survey feedback.

The short answer is Yes! Employee engagement can be impacted, positively or negatively, by changes in policies, practices, leadership, administrations, etc., so it’s important to stay in contact with staff through open communication.

Consider hosting individual team meetings or Focus Groups and ask open ended questions such as:

(1) What drives your high level of engagement?

(2) What should we be doing to maintain high levels of engagement?

(3) What could potentially lower levels of engagement?

(4) What areas could we improve upon, and how?

Use this information to develop an action plan to maintain or increase engagement.

First, explain the reason why the State does not release results with less than 5 responses (e.g. protects employee confidentiality), and share the statewide survey results.

Consider hosting a Listening Session and use conversation starters such as:

(1) In what area of your role do you feel most engaged/least engaged?

(2) What drives/diminishes your levels of engagement?

(3) As a Board, what areas would you like to improve in the next ___ months?

Use this information to engage all staff in action planning to achieve the desired results.

Frequently Asked Engagement Questions (FAQs)

I’ve shared my high-level agency results with employees. What should I be doing with my assistant directors and managers to cascade more detailed results through the organization?

Our employees tend to be highly competitive. Have you found it effective to use competition as a motivator for improved engagement?

What is a good way to involve my employees in the process for improving engagement?

How can I learn more?

How do I respond to feedback in our survey comments that is beyond leaderships’ control? For example, some employees say they would like to work remotely but their roles require them to be physically present at the office or in the field.

Less than half of the employees at my agency participate in the engagement survey. What can I do to increase participation?

My agency’s positive response rates are above 80% which is really good compared to the overall State. As long as we maintain high positive scores, do I need to take any action?

My Board only received the statewide results because we had less than five survey responses. How do I engage in post-survey action planning with my staff when we don’t have our results?