Recent global workforce studies have identified a growing engagement gap — posing a real threat for organizations amid a struggling economy. According to research published by the Corporate Leadership Council this year, since 2005, the number of employees exhibiting high levels of discretionary effort has dropped by half, and disengaged employees are 24 percent less likely to quit than they were in 2006. A recent Towers Perrin study of nearly 90,000 employees globally reports that only 1 in 5 employees is giving full discretionary effort on the job, and nearly 40 percent of employees are disenchanted or disengaged — lacking the rational, emotional and motivational connections to the company that drive discretionary effort.

But there are intimations of hope. Studies also clearly establish that organizational attributes like leadership, career and professional development, and the kind of work culture and reputation a company creates play a significant role in shaping employees’ level of engagement and behavior. Perhaps most encouraging is that employees worldwide report that they want to give more, but also want to see a clear and measurable return for their effort.

It’s HR’s challenge to deliver on this desire — aligning global employees so that their relationship with their organization, its leadership and their general work experience are mutually rewarding. HR rises to meet this challenge amid pressure to accelerate its own evolution toward being a strategic business driver balanced with the budget-tightening and high-performance mandates happening in nearly every organization. This collective of challenges creates “the perfect storm” for re-evaluating critical HR processes. Amway and Towers Perrin recently collaborated to manage the storm and discovered how the employee survey process can be as important as the destination. In the face of pressure to optimize investment and maximize value, Amway successfully launched a fresh approach to conducting an employee survey — one that goes beyond engagement to strategically align and drive the business.

The Challenge

Aligning and engaging employees are intimately coupled, and as a pair they are a necessary condition for business success. When these occur, people become an important source of competitive advantage. Amway has remained committed to the employee survey process — making the transition from measuring satisfaction to measuring engagement in the early 2000s. But in the current economic context, the decentralized survey approach and cost structure brought the priority of the survey process into question. Rather than simply addressing the obvious concern of a central administration, HR leveraged this opportunity to re-evaluate the entire survey process, taking a strategic approach to integrate it with business outcomes top of mind to leadership.

Principles Guide Action