Dear Dr. Mimi:

We have 22 employees in our company and have been experiencing increased turnover. We don’t know why. We are committed to improving our organization, but we don’t know what to do. Do you think doing a survey would be helpful? What should be the goal and the key areas covered, and how can we make sense of the results? We have never done anything like this and do not know where to begin. Help!

 —Survey Oy Vey!

Dear Oy Vey:

An employee engagement survey is a wonderful tool to help you determine how committed employees are and how this commitment influences their work effort. Studies have found that highly engaged employees are 1.3 times more likely to be high performers than those with lower engagement—and five times less likely to leave the company!

If you are committed to making changes, I suggest that the engagement survey should cover how satisfied people are with their organization, their job and their boss. Be sure to carefully customize the items to reflect your particular organization so the resulting data will help you discover the real issues that need to be addressed. I recommend using an online platform that not only helps ensure confidentiality but also allows people to make comments and suggestions for improvement. In my experience, if you act on suggested areas of improvement, the whole organization improves and the right people stay and support it.

 —Dr. Mimi