Many organisations conduct surveys to find out what their people think and feel. Whilst such initiatives ostensibly exist to improve performance, the truth is that lip service is often paid to them. They are regarded in some quarters as merely 'box ticking' exercises rather than a source of business-critical information carried out to deliver tangible and targeted results. At Kenexa, we saw this unspoken belief expressed once again during the GFC as some companies expressed the view that the investment involved in conducting surveys was unjustifiable in times of financial stress.

This scepticism is, in fact, not restricted to times of crisis. Critics often doubt that employees' feelings really drive performance; they question how some companies with less engaged workforces can outperform others with higher engagement, or point out instances where an increase in engagement wasn't matched by a similar increment in business results. These are perfectly legitimate concerns, but ones that can readily be answered - the evidence linking employee engagement (and other factors tapped into by opinion surveys) to performance is overwhelming. Of course other important factors exist - and that explains why employee surveys don't predict business performance with 100% accuracy. But the fact remains that 'the employee experience' is one of the key factors underpinning company performance - and understanding this is more important during difficult times.

Surveys used to focus on 'satisfaction' - a generalised, positive feeling about work. Whilst undoubtedly desirable, this rather undirected concept did not always pinpoint the key issues. These days, surveys generally measure the much more focused concept of 'employee engagement'. Numerous definitions exist but they do converge on similar themes; Kenexa's is:

"The extent to which employees are motivated to contribute to organisational success and are willing to apply discretionary effort to accomplishing tasks important to the achievement of organisational goals."

The vital elements of motivation, 'discretionary effort' and 'the achievement of organisational goals' are what distinguish this from mere satisfaction. It is possible for someone to feel 'satisfied' without being 'engaged' and is why the concept is so important to performance.

However, even the concept of engagement has come to be regarded as only part of the story. Theefforts of engaged employees can lack efficacy if organisations do not operate effectively. Shining light into this 'blind spot' lies at the heart of the concept of 'Performance Enablement' (PE), which
we define as:

"The extent to which an organisation is strongly committed to high levels of customer service and product quality and relies upon continuous improvement practices to achieve superior organisational results."

If your employees doubt the quality of your products, customer service or continuous improvement, can you afford to ignore that? Kenexa's surveys now routinely ask employees to assess PE just as much as factors related to engagement. Organisations with higher PE and engagement scores strongly outperform their lower-scoring counterparts.

We know from our clients that focusing on PE and engagement together consistently leads to much bigger increments in customer satisfaction ratings, 'diluted earnings per share' and 'Total Shareholder Return' than focusing on engagement alone.

Of course surveys do not achieve much in isolation; they only allow us to drive performance if they lead to focused and effective action. This is why PE opens up new possibilities; clearly the appropriate responses to concern about product or service quality are very different from what you should do if engagement is impacted by poor leadership or a lack of interesting work. In short, taking a wide-ranging view of what to include in employee opinion surveys, together with a commitment to taking appropriate action, enables organisations to perform much more effectively.