Comments on: Employee Engagement and Selfish Surveys: Open the Data! http://www.davidzinger.com/employee-engagement-and-selfish-surveys-open-the-data-6735/ Engage 2020 -> Ensure Work Matters! Fri, 03 Sep 2010 03:00:24 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: David Bowles http://www.davidzinger.com/employee-engagement-and-selfish-surveys-open-the-data-6735/comment-page-1/#comment-3808 David Bowles Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:23:12 +0000 http://www.davidzinger.com/?p=6735#comment-3808 David I agree about more transparency of data but I dont think it will happen in the broader area! It already happens in most surveys,.i.e. most opinion survey assignments which consultants have end up with employees seeing results, for the overall organization and for their area. At least they did when I worked for them, and that was my impression with other reputable consultants. I insisted on it or would not do the survey for the client. But in the area of sharing data with other consultants, whoaaaa, they wont do that! Two reasons: 1. Having a comparative "norm" or benchmark database is a competitive advantage for a consulting firm, something they can use to sell to prospective clients ("we can compare you to other utilities, tech companies, other successful, top perfomance companies, etc"). The guard them closely for this advantage. 2. I think perhaps they are scared that their database would turn out to be different to others'; they have reason to fear this. As somone who has done a study of normative employee opinion databases in one industry (utilities), I found a shocking result: they differed significantly on the same question, obviously for the same industry, for the same time period. I have never seen another study like this because there is almost never a chance to make this comparison as a result of what you are talking about in this post. Because of this secrecy, we have something interesting happening: a lack of standards. Imagine if a Wi-Fi protocol like 802.11g were different in every Starbucks you went to? You could never connect and get that cruical e-mail. Well we have that with engagement, no one defines it or measures it exactly the same way, and then they usually hide their data except for these giants coming out occasionally and giving us trends. That's why we have such big differences in trends being reported now between Gallup and WatsonWyatt (now TowersWatson). See the post I shared with the EE community recently (http://employeeengagement.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-troubling-issue-in) Thank you for bringing this up, its a great topic; but I dont see consultants giving up what might have taken them years to build, in spite of the problems which I point out here. all the best, David David I agree about more transparency of data but I dont think it will happen in the broader area! It already happens in most surveys,.i.e. most opinion survey assignments which consultants have end up with employees seeing results, for the overall organization and for their area. At least they did when I worked for them, and that was my impression with other reputable consultants. I insisted on it or would not do the survey for the client.

But in the area of sharing data with other consultants, whoaaaa, they wont do that! Two reasons:

1. Having a comparative “norm” or benchmark database is a competitive advantage for a consulting firm, something they can use to sell to prospective clients (“we can compare you to other utilities, tech companies, other successful, top perfomance companies, etc”). The guard them closely for this advantage.

2. I think perhaps they are scared that their database would turn out to be different to others’; they have reason to fear this. As somone who has done a study of normative employee opinion databases in one industry (utilities), I found a shocking result: they differed significantly on the same question, obviously for the same industry, for the same time period. I have never seen another study like this because there is almost never a chance to make this comparison as a result of what you are talking about in this post.

Because of this secrecy, we have something interesting happening: a lack of standards. Imagine if a Wi-Fi protocol like 802.11g were different in every Starbucks you went to? You could never connect and get that cruical e-mail. Well we have that with engagement, no one defines it or measures it exactly the same way, and then they usually hide their data except for these giants coming out occasionally and giving us trends. That’s why we have such big differences in trends being reported now between Gallup and WatsonWyatt (now TowersWatson). See the post I shared with the EE community recently (http://employeeengagement.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-troubling-issue-in)

Thank you for bringing this up, its a great topic; but I dont see consultants giving up what might have taken them years to build, in spite of the problems which I point out here.

all the best, David

]]> By: David Zinger http://www.davidzinger.com/employee-engagement-and-selfish-surveys-open-the-data-6735/comment-page-1/#comment-3802 David Zinger Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:46:13 +0000 http://www.davidzinger.com/?p=6735#comment-3802 Great points Stephen: And we should want people to be in control of their own work by having the data that gives them feedback about how engaged they are. David Great points Stephen:

And we should want people to be in control of their own work by having the data that gives them feedback about how engaged they are.

David

]]> By: Stephen J. Gill http://www.davidzinger.com/employee-engagement-and-selfish-surveys-open-the-data-6735/comment-page-1/#comment-3801 Stephen J. Gill Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:26:17 +0000 http://www.davidzinger.com/?p=6735#comment-3801 David, I blogged about the same issue on March 5th: http://stephenjgill.typepad.com/performance_improvement_b/2010/03/employee-surveys-how-is-as-important-as-what.html My point in that post is that when we collect survey data from employees, it's their data. That is, it belongs to them. We have a responsibility to make it available to them, help them interpret the data, and do something with the data to bring about change in the organization. I think what holds managers back from sharing employee survey data with employees is, in part, a need for control. Information gives people a sense of control. Giving away information makes them feel like they are losing control. David, I blogged about the same issue on March 5th: http://stephenjgill.typepad.com/performance_improvement_b/2010/03/employee-surveys-how-is-as-important-as-what.html
My point in that post is that when we collect survey data from employees, it’s their data. That is, it belongs to them. We have a responsibility to make it available to them, help them interpret the data, and do something with the data to bring about change in the organization. I think what holds managers back from sharing employee survey data with employees is, in part, a need for control. Information gives people a sense of control. Giving away information makes them feel like they are losing control.

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