Engaging Government Employees

CHAPTER 8

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Steps 1 and 2: Planning and Conducting the Employee-Engagement Survey

Employee-engagement surveys are the most direct—and therefore, I believe, the best—way to assess engagement. However, since almost nothing is ever perfect, surveying has its advantages and disadvantages and must be approached and planned carefully, especially in government.

One obvious advantage is that well-designed and well-administered surveys quantify the level of employee engagement with a precision that other approaches can’t match. For example, let’s look at one of the “agree/disagree” statements suggested in the “diagnostic checklist” cited in Chapter 6 as a way to determine if employees are engaged: Employees are asked if “performance assessment ...