Employee Engagement Surveys: Are they Worth It?

Employee Engagement Surveys: Are they Worth It?

Creating a good employment experience is key to creating success within and outside of your insurance agency. Taking employee or agent satisfaction seriously will aid in building an insurance agency that succeeds with its agents and employees, rather than at their expense. By focusing on the satisfaction of your employees and insurance agents, you are on the right path to becoming an employer people will want to work for. To work on creating a concrete framework for your insurance agency’s culture, check out our Company Culture self-study training course and workbook to ensure your success.

Consider these aspects when trying to decide if your agency should conduct a survey:

1. Are you banking on the survey to fix a known problem at your insurance agency? If this is the case and you are already trying to fix the problem, a survey is not necessarily needed. After the problem is fixed and corrective actions have been taken, that would be the time to conduct a survey. Employee satisfaction surveys are tools used to measure the level of satisfaction of your agents and employees within your insurance agency. If you already have an idea of what problems are occurring within your insurance agency, it is a better idea to focus on that. Try leading an in-depth discussion about what is going on and asking for various people’s opinions on how to fix it. Using a survey will identify the problem, not fix it.
2. Are your leaders/executive team open and responsive to criticism and feedback? Employee surveys (especially the first one) can bring some pretty big surprises, even if your leaders believe they are prepared for the worst. Sometimes, this can lead to your executive team becoming defensive and not following through. The key to satisfying your agents and employees is when your employees understand that actions are being taken to accommodate the results of an employee satisfaction survey. On the other hand, if there is no follow up or nothing is done to correct the problems discovered through an employee satisfaction survey, the trust and confidence your employees and agents have in you and your executive team will be damaged.
3. You should be encouraging your managers to talk with your agents and employees about their work experience. Managers that are in tune with their team are rarely surprised by the employee engagement surveys because they have been actively talking to their team about what challenges and successes they are facing. On the other hand, leaders that don’t engage properly with their team will have a harder time accepting the results of an employee engagement survey. Agency leaders should ensure that managers are having one-on-one meetings with their team members on, at least, a monthly basis. This can put them on a path for improved engagement.
4. Lastly, you should be sure of what you would like to measure through an employee engagement survey. To create a valuable survey, discuss with your managers and talk about the answers to the following questions:

• What is employee engagement to your insurance agency?
• Why is employee engagement critical to your insurance agency?

To create a valuable survey, you need to answer those questions and figure out which Key Performance Indicators you would like to improve. If you are unsure where your employees and agents may need improvement, talk with your managers about it. After all, they are the ones in charge of leading your teams. Until you can figure out what needs to be improved within your insurance agency, you should avoid creating an employee engagement survey.

Employee engagement surveys are powerful tools that a great to gain insight into what your employees expect of you and your executive staff. By using these surveys, you can begin down a path of success with satisfying and engaging your employees.

For more information on employee satisfaction and engagement, give us a call at 800-962-4693, and we would be more than delighted to assist you.