Surveys Aren't the Employee Engagement Answer

Recognize This: Surveys give us good data points, but it’s up to us to read them with an eye for the truth in our own environment.

Surveys are nothing more than data on a point in time, which makes it hard sometimes to assess the validity of the results. Especially when the results seemingly conflict.

Global employee engagement is an interesting example. Kenexa’s Employee Engagement Index found:

“While EEI scores might have differed from country to country, the pattern of scores over time is fairly consistent across countries. In fact, almost every country exhibits a similar downward curvilinear trend from 2009 to 2010. China is a notable exception, with an upward curvilinear trend that shows a substantial increase from 2009 to 2010.”

But BlessingWhite’s 2011 employee engagement survey found:

“Of the 10,914 workers surveyed worldwide only 31% are Engaged. As the chart illustrates, India has the most Engaged (37%); China has the least (17%).”

What can we infer then? Perhaps China’s engagement has increased substantially from 2009 to 2010, but their overall engagement levels are still lower than the rest of the world.

Regardless, the message of this post is – survey, but read the survey results for what they are – data on points in time.

What’s your take on the surveys and the value of survey results? Who’s your preferred source of data and interpretations that you trust?