How to Do a Free Team Engagement Survey in 30 Minutes: Find Out What Your Peeps Really Think (If You Dare!)
The Monday Morning Manager #40
Leading an engaged team is fun.
Your boss will love you, it’s easy, and you’ll hit your KPIs without any drama.
It’s up to you as a leader to keep tabs on engagement levels in your team.
Enter, the engagement survey.
You’ve got three options:
- Hire a fancy consultancy, pay big money, and get the consultants to analyze it all for you
- Go cheap and use survey monkey and work out what the answers mean on your own
- Find out what your team thinks for free (apart from some pizza or a plate of muffins) by asking them
The free approach, though quick and dirty, will get you some answers fast.
Here is how to do it.
Step One — Tell them what you are going to do in advance.
There is no merit in springing this type of exercise on a team, plus you want them to arrive at the meeting prepared.
Tell the team you are setting up a meeting to work on engagement, but there is no hidden agenda. You just want to improve engagement generally.
Send the calendar invites for a time when everyone can attend, or you’ll get all sorts of excuses.
Make sure you book a room with a whiteboard.
Step Two — Introduce the meeting
In the meeting, say that you want to check in with the team to ensure everyone is happy, engaged, and has everything they need.
Stress that everything will be confidential. Today you are just gauging the feel of the team.
Step Three — Do the survey
Draw a long line on the whiteboard; at one end, write Disengaged; at the other, write Engaged.
Put markers on the line from 1–10, with the one at the Disengaged end.
Explain what you mean by engaged — generally, you want to stay with the organization. You are happy and fulfilled in the job and give discretionary effort to get the job done.
Hand out paper slips and ask your team to write a number for how engaged they feel at work. Stress that no one will know anyone else’s scores.
One or two people will always be worried about confidentiality, so ensure all the pens are the same color.
Once your team has written their number down and folded the paper, get someone to collect the slips in a container and shake it.
Ask someone else to open the slips and read out the numbers.
Mark the numbers on the line.
Ask someone to work out the average engagement score.
Step Four — Wrap Up the Meeting
You might feel shaky after a meeting like this, especially if the feedback is poor.
Consider what you will say beforehand to wrap up so you are prepared.
Here are a few suggestions:
- Thank everyone for their participation and their honesty.
- Say that you take engagement seriously and that you’d like everyone to think about what needs to happen for them to be happier in their role.
- Tell the team there will be another meeting soon to discuss their ideas.
Step Five — After the Meeting
Well done. You’ve learned valuable information about how engaged your team is.
Now book the next meeting as soon as you can.
When you send the invites, ask everyone to bring ideas on how to make things better in the team.
More resources, communication, or relationships with other departments could increase engagement.
Thanks for reading. I hope this helps :-)
I write about leadership & training, and I’ve designed The New Leader’s Starter Kit to help leaders communicate with their teams. Get your free copy here — The New Leader’s Starter Kit takes you through how to run One-to-Ones and Constructive Feedback sessions & develop professional listening skills — a printable one-to-one form, feedback form and listening skills checklist included.
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