Artificial intelligence (AI), by eliminating the “survey crunch”, has the potential of increasing employee engagement. Steven Frost explains that it can create simple, digestible actions for every people manager.
It can be likened to trying to climb Mount Everest using only a thin rope and some crampons. HR leaders know the best ways to engage employees, but they often lack the resources and time to do so. This is especially true when it comes to implementing the insights from engagement surveys. The double-sided problem of employee engagement has been a major issue for organisations for many decades. AI has made it possible to eliminate the “survey crunch” and usher in a new era of employee involvement.
The Problem with Surveys
Employee engagement surveys are crucial to finding out what employees want, need, and how satisfied they are. Engagement surveys can be used to bring about positive changes, such as identifying key engagement drivers, improving employee experiences, and providing managers with tailored action plans for supporting and empowering their teams.
There is a problem with engagement surveys on both sides that has held back the progress of organisations for decades. First, HR teams are usually overloaded and don’t have time to crunch the data from engagement surveys to create tailored action plans. They also lack the time to work with people managers to help them influence change. On the other hand, managers are not familiar with how to interpret survey results and prioritize their actions. Survey findings and subsequent actions are thrown into a blackhole.
HR has attempted to solve this problem in two ways: by increasing their team size, hiring third-party consultants for employee engagement, and/or training people managers about engagement survey interpretation and analysis. The time and cost of doing this makes it impossible for many organizations. HR teams are forced to muddle along, spending long hours interpreting and implementing the survey results, with only enough time to implement a few of the insights. This leads to frustration, rather than a positive change.
Eliminating survey crunch
AI is a welcome change.
AI will improve employee engagement by eliminating the “survey crunch” and presenting tailored actions to each manager in an easy-to-digest format.
Here’s how it works.
AI will instantly analyze the results of an engagement survey and pull out the key findings within seconds. Open-text comments from employees are also analysed to get a concise and quick understanding of the feelings.
These findings can be presented as high-level, organisation-wide summaries or tailored departmental summaries for specific teams and departments. These AI summaries can be personalised and contextualised to help each manager better understand how their employees feel, what’s working well, and what could be improved.
AI eliminates the need to interpret dashboards. Instead, the findings and action are delivered via an avatar or in text format. The AI adapts automatically to the recipient’s position, language, and managerial level.
Each people manager has instant access to vital guidance, from onboarding recommendations to advice about staff recognition. This is delivered in a manner that suits them.
Finally, making engagement work
AI’s impact on eliminating double-sided problems is transformative. The time between analysing insights and translating them into tailored actions is much shorter. This process is instantaneous and gives HR managers and people managers more time.
As a result of the rapid reduction in time between analysis, insights, and action, HR leaders, business managers, and people managers are able to improve employee satisfaction and productivity immediately. Employees will also feel empowered when they see that their feedback has an immediate impact. This will further improve engagement.
The delivery of survey insights is not the only thing that has changed. AI will fundamentally alter traditional engagement surveys, including dashboards that deliver insights. We’re already witnessing the death of dashboards.
AI is so powerful that organizations will have more interactive, real-time, personalised and intuitive conversations with their employees, rather than asking for a survey. AI will be a part of these conversations and provide tailored visualisations and recommendations that are context-aware based on the work roles and environments.
Engagement 2.0
HR leaders need to understand the benefits and implications of AI and put in place the frameworks necessary to manage and not stifle the changes that are coming. Advanced AI is transforming the employee survey, which signals a new era of employee engagement where empowered and motivated workers accelerate performance to a never-before seen rate.
