Navigating Employee Engagement During a Restructure: A Comprehensive Guide

Restructuring a company is often a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it signifies that the organization is ready to invest in change. On the other, it can create unforeseen challenges, particularly in maintaining employee engagement. This was the case for a friend from my network, whose company recently went through a reduction in force (RIF) and reorg. Their department actually grew from 15 employees to about 40.

The Challenge: Bad Employee Engagement Scores

Post-reorg, their employee engagement scores took a significant hit. The company's overall engagement score plummeted to 53%, a worrying figure when compared to the industry benchmark of 70-75%. Even more concerning was the sharp decline in their leadership score, which had previously been a healthy 80%. Understandably, this raised several vital questions: Is such a drop typical? Should they be alarmed? And most importantly, how should they go about recovering their employee engagement scores?

Understanding the Employee Engagement Problem and its Scale

Determining whether the drop in engagement scores is significant requires a deeper understanding of the context, including the time elapsed between the two scores and the period over which the team expanded. Moreover, comprehensive engagement reports offer insights into specific problematic areas, such as job-related engagement, managerial issues, team dynamics, or organizational aspects.

The Solution: A Strategic Action Plan to Address Employee Engagement

The key to managing this issue lies in devising and executing an effective action plan following every employee engagement survey. Here's how:

1. Break Down Scores: Analyze employee engagement scores by team, ensuring that groups contain no fewer than five members to preserve anonymity. This will provide a more granular view of the scores and give managers insight into specific issues that require addressing. Typical employee engagement survey reports will break down results into employees' engagement with their job, their manager, their team, and the organization at large.
2. Review Results: When reviewing employee engagement results, it's important to share them with colleagues and direct reports. Instead of defending the company or reasons for any declines, focus on asking questions and identifying patterns. Allow team leads a week to discuss the results with their teams and gather feedback.
3. Corroborate Findings: As a leadership team, compile your findings, categorize the results, and ultimately identify the top three actions that you believe will have the greatest impact on improving engagement levels across the organization. By taking a data-driven approach to this process, you can ensure that your efforts are focused on the areas that will make the biggest difference in creating a workplace where employees feel heard, appreciated, and supported to do their best work. This becomes the initial draft of your action plan.
4. Communicate with Your Team: Share the initial draft of your employee engagement action plan with your team, reminding them of the areas where you've excelled, pinpointing opportunities for improvement, and providing a clear rationale behind the selection of particular areas of focus. Encourage an interactive dialogue by organizing brainstorming sessions with your team, which not only generate innovative solutions to address these areas but also foster a sense of unity and shared responsibility. This is really where change starts to occur by creating a collaborative environment that values every member's input and strengthens the team's collective resolve to improve engagement.
5. Finalize Your Action Plan: After a thorough analysis, crystallize your findings into your final employee engagement action plan. As you do so, take into consideration the financial implications, resources at your disposal, and the time frame required for the effective implementation of these actions. Then, maintain transparency with your team by clearly communicating the actions that will be prioritized, as well as those that may need to be deferred, providing a well-justified rationale for each decision to foster understanding and alignment.
6. Execute and Update: Implement your plan and schedule regular updates to hold stakeholders accountable and update your team on progress. Assign responsibility for each of the identified tasks and hold accountable those who are responsible for its completion.
7. Re-evaluate Engagement: After six months, assess employee engagement again to measure the effectiveness of your actions and address new issues. Make sure to measure progress against milestones and maintain ongoing communication with your team so that everyone stays in the loop.

By executing a plan like that, team members are bound to feel appreciated and heard, boosting their engagement levels.

In my previous roles as a department head and now in a consultant capacity at Lever Talent, I have led several employee engagement campaigns. Through these experiences, I have learned that engagement is more than just a number, but rather a reflection of your team's willingness to go the extra mile. By being proactive and following the steps outlined in this article every 6-12 months, you can develop an effective employee engagement strategy that will aid your team in growing and succeeding even after a restructuring. If you are struggling with this, please get in touch with Lever Talent. We are here and eager to lend a helping hand.