Workplace and the Engaged Worker
Service agency administrators struggle to promote a condition by which workers feel positive in their workplace as well as towards the agency. Initiatives have been launched only to fallow by dearth of concrete results. Administrators know the beneficial effects of employee engagement and are well-aware of the value of engaged workers on client satisfaction. Moreover, common is the notion that disengaged workers generate more defects in the service delivery process. The realization of a successful employee engagement initiative rests on measurement. The primary requirement is knowing the effectiveness of a program and knowing which barriers to address with limited resources. The following case study illustrates an approach undertaken by a fictitious human service agency to measure the state of employee engagement in its organization and recounts an actual experience in a service area of an agency.
For this case study, take a hypothetical Upper Midwest Social Services, a human services organization with a social service staff of 2,000. Of these, 280 deliver public health services. Administrator Ernesto Gumban while summarizing that morning’s meeting with Jon Kuelis, manager of that service area, explained, “I noticed the frustration you and your fellow area managers have expressed with the current results of our employee engagement initiative. My experience tells me that we need to make our definition of employee engagement tangible by attaching practical measurement so that we can ascertain not only where we came from, but chart our progress as well. You volunteered your service area and your time to begin our search for a way to wrap our arms around the barriers holding our employees back from being engaged. I appreciate your leadership on this project, and see me anytime should you need resources or ideas.” Jon, while walking out of the office, thanked Ernesto for assigning him an important issue that dogged other area managers as well.
After a week, Jon appeared at the door of Ernesto’s office and said, “If you have 15 minutes, I'd like to share the findings from our engagement measurement project. Following your suggestion, my team started with data from our annual standardized employee feedback survey. We used a scoring system to measure each worker's degree of engagement. We formed groups of high scorers and low scorers. We analyzed questionnaires where responses between these two groups were statistically different. The report of analysis at the end tabulates the results. The findings are:
1. My area is organized into a layer of front line staff and another layer of support staff. Work hand-offs occur from one team to another. We are now looking at multiple teams where a team will constitute both frontline and support worker. Hand-offs that way will occur among team members.
2. Due to our support staff's focus on responding to matters from state authorities, workers in these layers have up-to-date individual development plans and performance reviews, and receive training and participate in agency-wide initiatives. With the prospective operating clusters, the administrative treatment of frontline and support workers will be equitable. There will be as much cross training between worker assignments as much as feasible.
3. We are also looking at looking at individual goal setting and performance measurement imbedded in continuous process improvement disciplines such as Six Sigma.”
“Jon, this study done by you and your public health team is exemplary,” said Ernesto. “Could you share your results with the other service area managers? I will follow up with each of them to be sure that they have all resources needed to duplicate your study in their respective areas. I will also advise them to see you for any detail or insight. Again, thanks for a good job.” As Jon turned to return back to his office he handed Ernesto the analysis sheet.
Result of Analysis
Understanding employee morale can be achieved by an analysis of standardized employee surveys rather than usual attention to employees’ response on a specific questionnaire. Upper Midwest Social Services’ annual employee feedback survey is made up of 18 questionnaires each having four numerical response scales. A scale consists of five digits with 4 representing “strongly agree,” and 1 representing “strongly disagree” to the statement in the questionnaire. A “2” implying a “disagree” response is inserted when there are no response. The total of 18 responses in the survey becomes the anonymous employee’s engagement score.
The graph of engagement scores was unimodal about a mean. The scores for 280 public health employees were sorted in an ascending order after which one group of 14 high scoring survey responses and another group of 14 low scoring responses were selected. For each questionnaire, the average engagement score between the two groups were compared and statistically tested using ANOVA. Significant differences among average scores for a questionnaire are summarized in the table above.
By MgmtLaboratory.com staff. 2018