When Satya Nadella began his role as CEO of Microsoft, he sent a company-wide email that spoke to the importance of employee satisfaction in driving employee engagement and organizational success.
Most companies today are actively measuring employee satisfaction. And many of them have become very good at measuring and producing quantitative insights. And they’ll measure with a certain goal in mind. When the Key Performance Indicator says they’ve reached their goal, they’ll consider it a success. And they’ll start measuring again the next quarter or year.
These companies have falling into the “metric centric trap.”
Even though the Key Performance Indicator says “Employees are Satisfied with their Workplace,” there’s still plenty of opportunity to improve, if you’re willing to go beyond the metrics.
What do the top-performers do? What do those companies that are truly employee-focused to, that their metric-focused counterparts miss?
Employee focused organizations follow-up on negative survey responses. They’ll read the comments with rigor. They’ll interview the employees who submitted negative responses. And they’ll ask them questions to determine the root cause of dissatisfaction. Then they’ll take action to fix what’s broken. By doing this, they’ll raise the overall satisfaction rates even higher.
A Key Performance Indicator provides insight. But insight alone doesn’t achieve results. Insight is like a map that shows you how to navigate to your destination, but the action of driving is what gets you there.