PI Engagement Assessment FAQs

Engagement Overview

What is Engagement?

Engagement is an individual’s emotional commitment to their organization and its goals.

Why is Engagement important to organizations?

Turnover, absenteeism, customer satisfaction, safety, productivity, and other metrics are related to engagement in a way that has a positive influence on the organization and its bottom line.

How do I improve Engagement?

PI recommends areas of action that are highly related to engagement at your organization and prioritizes them based on their differences from the organization’s overall score. Choosing one or two of the items we call out as Challenges is a great place to start taking action with the end goal of improving engagement.

Employee Experience Survey

What does the Experience Survey measure?

The Experience Survey measures five main areas of employee experience: experience on the Job, with the Manager, with the Team, and with the Organization overall, as well as a section on Engagement.

Who should run an experience survey?

Any organization interested in understanding – in detail – the work experience of their team members, and is committed to making that experience the best that it can be.

Does the Experience Survey increase engagement at my organization?

The act of conducting a survey will not automatically increase engagement at your organization. To truly have an impact, managers and leaders need to take action based on the feedback provided through the survey. Taking action is vital to moving the needle on engagement. In fact, administering a survey and doing nothing with the results can actually decrease engagement.

How often should I administer an Experience Survey?

PI recommends administering a survey at least once every 12 months. In certain circumstances, every six months may be appropriate.

Can I add my own items to the survey?

Not at this time.

Employee Experience Survey Scoring

What do the scores on my report mean?

The scores on your report are percent favorable scores, or the total percent of agree and strongly agree responses to a particular item or dimension. In other words, they are the total percentage of the organization or manager’s team who feel positively about an item or dimension.

What is the benchmark?

The benchmark used for Overall organization results is PI’s XP Benchmark, a metric derived from a survey population of over 25,000 people across a wide variety of industries, and encompassing individuals sitting at different levels in an organization. It serves as a point of comparison to help executives understand how their organization as a whole compares to other businesses on certain aspects of the employee experience.

The benchmark managers receive on their report is the company overall. Managers should be most concerned with how their team experiences working at the organization compared to other parts of that same organization; therefore we benchmark them against their company overall.

What do I do if my scores are bad?

Bad is relative. The important takeaway is that any score on your report ultimately represents a feeling or experience your team members are going through. Even when the results are not particularly positive overall, you can have an impact on improving your team’s experiences at work. Take the time to process and hold an open conversation with your team about the results, then dig in and start taking action!

What is a good score? A bad score?

Good and bad are relative. Some items on the survey naturally score more favorably than others. To work through this, PI compares scores to our EXP Benchmark. The benchmark gives you an idea of how the item tends to score across a wide variety of people, so from there you can determine which of your items are strengths or weaknesses. Overall organization reports compare scores to the EXP benchmark, and manager reports compare scores to the organization overall. Typically, we consider a score of more than 15% above the benchmark to be a strong success, between 6 – 15% above the benchmark to be above average, within five points above or below the benchmark to be right on average, 6 – 15% below the benchmark to be below average, and more than 15% below to be a concern.

Can I see how an individual person rated me as a manager?

No. PI will not share raw, non-aggregated results with your organization.

Employee Experience Survey Reports

How are successes and caution areas generated?

The successes and opportunities are generated using PI’s Engagement Impact Algorithm. First, we look at an item’s relationship to engagement, using a Pearson’s correlation. From there, the items are compared against the appropriate benchmark: PI’s EXP Benchmark for the organization overall, and the organization overall for the manager reports. The three items that are most above the benchmark are the successes, and the five items that are most below the benchmark are the caution areas.

Why use a correlation?

Pearson’s correlation is an indicator of the relationship between two pieces of data. Because the engagement items themselves are not actionable, meaning there aren’t direct actions to take in order to improve them, we look to understand which items on the survey have the strongest relationships with engagement. Correlations help us assess the strength of those relationships. By taking action on an item that is highly correlated with or related to engagement, improvement in that item is likely to move the needle on engagement as well.

How do I know I can trust these results?

These results are feedback from your employees. You asked and they answered. You and PI made a commitment to the confidentiality of their responses, and so they have responded with how they feel about their experience working at their organization. Our automated processes take data directly from the survey, crunch it, and create your reports with no manual intervention. Your results are accurate representations of your teams’ feedback.

Are the results confidential or anonymous?

These results are confidential, not anonymous. Nobody at your organization will see the results of the survey in a raw, unaggregated form, and reports will only be delivered to managers who have 5 or more responses on their team. Since we ask for email address as part of the OrgUpload process and use those emails to send out links specific to each employee, the results are not truly anonymous.

Who can see my results?

Your HR admin will get a download of all reports and will share your report with you. Your manager may also get a view of your data. From there, you can choose who you share the data with. It is strongly recommended that you share your results with your team; it is their feedback, after all, and sharing the results opens the door to a productive conversation where you could gain a deeper understanding of what might be going through their minds on specific pieces of the results.

My team has changed since the survey. Can I see a report after the restructure?

Not at this time.

I only have three people on my team. Will I get a report?

You need at least 5 people’s responses in order to get a report specific to a team. If you do not, we recommend looking to your manager’s or the company overall’s reports to identify proper areas for taking action.

Why do I not have a report, or why are some of my questions not showing scores?

At least five people need to respond to the survey in order to generate a report. If you have more than five people on your team but only four people took the survey, that response rate is still too low to generate a report. If five people on your team did respond to the survey, but only four answered a particular item, you will see “Insufficient Data” displayed for that item.

Employee Experience Survey Actions

Why should I look to the successes and opportunities to take action?

Items in the Engagement dimension are not directly actionable. In other words, there aren’t any actions that can be taken to directly influence change in those items. The successes and opportunities are selected, in part, due to their strong relationship with engagement. Taking action on one of those items is more likely to move the needle on engagement than if one were to take action on an item not as highly related to engagement.

Sometimes it is tempting to look at the lowest and highest scoring items to mark where things are going well or not. The PI Engagement Impact algorithm compares your items to a benchmark, which provides better information of how “good” or “bad” an item’s score actually is.

Between evaluating an item’s potential impact on engagement along with its relative strength or weakness to the benchmark, the provided successes and opportunities give the manager a solid foundation upon which they can celebrate what is going well within their team, as well as where they need to focus their action efforts.

What do I need to do to create an action plan?

PI provides some suggestions for you to get started in your team report. However, those are not the only possible solutions. To get started identifying the best course of action to improve a certain area, reflect on the items listed as opportunities. Do they make sense, and align with what you thought might be areas of opportunity? Think about what experiences, work processes, relationships, etc., could be influencing favorable sentiments about the item.

Start to draft an idea of steps you could take to improve the item, but leave your mind open to suggestions from your team. From there, discuss with your team. Solicit their honest feedback; do they feel comfortable sharing examples, or are they able to add any details which could indicate why an item might be an opportunity?

Once you have identified potential root causes, work together to identify a few steps, processes, or different ways of working that could lead to a more positive experience at work.

Remember, action is an iterative process. One plan may not be the right one, so be prepared to circle back with your team to discuss your progress, and make any tweaks that may be necessary.

All my results are good. Where should I spend my time taking action?

PI suggests five key areas of opportunity for each team report. Even if an item in the opportunity is above the benchmark, those opportunities will be those areas where a manager can have an impact, and whose scores are likely closest to the benchmark. No team has a perfect employee experience – there is always something to work on. When you meet with your team to discuss results and work together to identify your action plans, ask your team if there is anything else they feel that could be improving their experience at work, even if it wasn’t asked on the survey. If many people bring up the same thing, work with the team to formulate an action plan on that topic. Remember, by listening to your team about what would make their work experience better and showing them you have heard them, you are firming their sense of trust in you – a key need for success in any area.

All my results are not so good. Where should I start taking action?

PI suggests five key areas to focus on as opportunities for action. Any one of those items are a good place to start your action planning. That said, do not create an action plan for each item and try to tackle all of them at once. Instead, start with one or two. Look to items that you feel you can have a meaningful impact on. Ask your team members which are the most important to them – they may feel one item above the others stands out as needing change. Don’t try to boil the ocean. You’re going to be implementing new habits and changing others, and those behavior changes take time. Select one area you can have an impact on and get good at that before moving onto the next action.

How do I know if my actions are working?

An improvement in your employees’ work experience should be observable by happier teams, work getting done more easily, greater productivity, and more. If you’re not sure that your action path is making a difference, talk with your team about it. Ask them what they like about any changes you have made, what isn’t working for them, and what they would change. Remember, taking action is an iterative process. While it can take some time to establish new habits, you are allowed to change course if something is not making a difference. Above all, remember to talk with your team and encourage them to be a part of the action planning and implementation.