Author: Daniel Wright

Categories
Blog Employee Wellbeing

The damage caused by employee sleep disorders

22nd March, 2022.

The damage caused by employee sleep disorders

Sleep disorders are a global epidemic. A whopping 45% of the world’s population suffer from sleep problems. That’s 45% of your employees that may have a reduced attention span, poor memory, lack of energy and mood swings. All of these symptoms lead to poor or risky decision making. So much so that research suggests that 13% of workplace injuries and 20% of vehicles crashes are caused by tiredness.

While the immediate implications are clear, many are unaware of the long-term damage sleep disorders can cause. Impaired immune function, obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, stroke and depression are all linked to sleep disorders. 

How to support employees suffering from sleep disorders

Given the detrimental impact sleep disorders can have on working and personal life, we need to ensure our employees have the support they need.

Less than a third of people suffering from a sleep disorder seek professional help. The reason for this may be because awareness is lacking. Here are a few facts that you could share with your employees to encourage them to seek help:

  • Sleep problems affect a third to a half of all adults at some point.
  • Sleep problems constitute problems getting to sleep, waking up early, or walking for prolonged periods during the night.
  • Most sleep disorders are preventable or treatable. 

Here are some really useful resources to help your employees manage their sleeping habits and identify if they are suffering from a sleep disorder: 

  • Understand what might be causing tiredness – this NHS article helps to explain the potential reasons for tiredness.
  • Practice good sleep hygiene – for those suffering from tiredness (rather than a sleep disorder) this guide provides advice to help get a good night’s sleep.
  • A list of sleep disorders – The Sleep Charity explains each of the sleep disorders, from narcolepsy to bruxism, and the common causes of each. 
  • Know when to seek medical help – because there are so many causes of poor sleep, it can be difficult to know when to speak to a doctor. This checklist makes that decision easier.
  • Useful FAQs – these frequently asked questions cover everything from how to cope with a child that won’t go to sleep, to what foods help induce sleep. 

Workplace factors influencing sleep patterns

Excessive workload, organisation change and shift working may all negatively impact sleep. 

While it may be difficult to directly measure how work is impacting sleep habits, you can understand more about the work-life balance. An employee survey that includes work-life balance survey questions such as the following will enable you to make any necessary changes:

  1. Does your work schedule allow you to spend quality time with your friends and family?
  2. Is your workload excessive?
  3. On a scale of 1-10, on average, how stressed do you feel at the end of your working day?
  4. If you were unhappy with your work-life balance would you feel comfortable raising your concerns?
  5. How could your work/life balance be improved?

Surveys such as this should be carried out regularly to highlight and resolve any imbalances. 

We spend up to one-third of our lives sleeping. Despite it being a basic human need, that need is often overlooked. By starting conversations and encouraging employees to share their opinions and experiences, we can help employees manage their sleep problems and address their sleep disorders. 

daniel wright

Daniel Wright

Marketing Assistant

With a desire to grow personally and a wish to improve working lives through employee engagement, I am thrilled to be part of building an internal comms system that connects everyone.
Book a Demo

Share This Post

Relevant resources

Categories
VRAMP Features

Create internal comms

13th January, 2022.

Create Internal Communications with Ease

With VRAMP’s highly intuitive editor you can create visually appealing communications that your employees receive straight in the palm of their hand. With the VRAMP app on their mobile device, your employees have a direct route to the communications that matter to them. No matter where they are: in the office, in a field or at a service station! As long as they have a mobile device and signal, they can stay connected. 

Sounds amazing, right? Well, it is, and we’ve only just scraped the surface.  

VRAMP provides your employees with their own personalised social media-style channel. You create communications and through the segmentation options, you only send those communications to the employees it is relevant for. By only sharing information that is of interest and useful to each individual you will naturally increase engagement. Should you choose, your employees can also like and comment on your communications which will further encourage engagement.  For any urgent messages you can also send push notifications to alert them of its importance.  

The messages you create can take on many forms – whether text, images, forms or videos. Everything is hosted in VRAMP so there is no need to click on links to watch videos for example. It all happens straight from the VRAMP app.  

For those employees who prefer receiving information via email we cater for their needs too. VRAMP’s multichannel approach allows you to create a message once and then choose your distribution channels at a click of a button. 

The knowledge share that can be achieved with VRAMP goes beyond the personalised feeds you push information to. You can also save files, such as employee handbooks and health and safety documents, in a central location for all your employees to access at any time.  

But perhaps the best bit about VRAMP is that you can share the load. Sending communications doesn’t have to sit entirely with you! You can have multiple authors who each contribute content from wherever they are. They don’t need to use a desktop and the user-friendly functionality makes it very easy even if they don’t use VRAMP regularly.  

Meanwhile, everything you send is automatically monitored. VRAMP provides insightful analytical data so you can see what resonates best, what your employee engagement levels are and how you can improve your internal communication and employee engagement processes. 

For more information on VRAMP and how it will help you with your internal communications book a demo to see VRAMP in action. 

Trevor Munday

Director

I’m quick thinking & make calculated decisions that help projects & clients move forward & not stall. Helping businesses deliver on their objectives through VRAMP’s internal communications system.

Categories
VRAMP Features

How we measure Employee Engagement Score

21st December, 2021.

How VRAMP Measures Your Employee Engagement Score

Measuring success is a massive part of every business. At VRAMP we believe the same analytical focus should also be put on employee engagement. After all, as this infographic shows, employee engagement plays a huge role in employee productivity, profitability and even work-based accidents. By measuring employee engagement it is possible to make improvements, which in turn contribute to business success. 

What is an employee engagement score?

Put simply, an employee engagement score is the measure of an individual’s commitment to their organisation.

 

How do you keep track of your employee engagement score

There are several different ways to measure employee engagement and many organisations opt to use multiple measures that complement one another. Our employee engagement guide talks you through each of the different methods to measure employee engagement but for the purpose of this blog, we are going to focus on the easiest route – through the use of an employee engagement platform. 

Why is this the easiest route I hear you ask! Because employee engagement software such as VRAMP does everything for you!

Through the platform’s algorithms, VRAMP attains data on various aspects and presents the findings in a dashboard. The points from which VRAMP draws this information include, opens, views, and clicks. It’s this combination of data points that make the VRAMP employee engagement score so useful. You know that you have a reliable overview of all your tactics rather than having to compare and analyse multiple measures.

Aside from the all-encompassing nature of VRAMP’s employee engagement score and the fact you don’t have to do anything to see this score, there are other perks:

  • VRAMP provides a real-time employee engagement score – you can login and see your score at any given time.
  • VRAMP provides an engagement score at multiple levels – from the overall score of the organisation to individual teams. This ability to look at more granular detail not only helps those responsible for employee engagement but also line managers and HR.
  • The VRAMP employee engagement score includes survey participation rates because employee surveys are included in VRAMP. You can send an employee survey whenever you want to and the success of that survey will be included in your overall employee engagement score. This connection between all of your employee engagement efforts makes the VRAMP employee engagement score an extremely accurate way of measuring employee engagement.
  • You can set benchmarks to work towards and VRAMP will keep tabs of your progress as you work towards this benchmark.

What is a good employee engagement score?

VRAMP measures your employee engagement from 0-10. As a general rule of thumb, we consider anything above 6 to be good and above 8 to be excellent. But, this comes with a huge caveat. 

Our classification of ‘good’ and ‘excellent’ is based on a company that has an established employee engagement strategy. If you have only just started your employee engagement journey and began at a score of 1, to reach a score of 5 would be considered brilliant. 

So while we are asked all the time what a good score is, our advice is to never compare yourself against other organisations. Instead, look at your employee engagement score as your own journey. As long as you are seeing improvement, it is good. If you are seeing a lot of improvement it is excellent!

banner-admin-screen-vramp

Employee engagement within VRAMP

For more information on how you can keep tabs of your employee engagement score, book a demo and we will show you how it will help you improve your internal comms and employee engagement.

Trevor Munday

Director

I’m quick thinking & make calculated decisions that help projects & clients move forward & not stall. Helping businesses deliver on their objectives through VRAMP’s internal communications system.

Relevant resources

Create internal comms

13th January, 2022. Create Internal Communications with Ease With VRAMP’s highly intuitive editor you can create visually appealing communications that your employees receive

Read More »

Analytics

1st December, 2021. VRAMP Analytics Analytics in the context of internal comms and employee engagement is a game-changer. 48% of UK businesses don’t

Read More »
Categories
VRAMP Features

Analytics

1st December, 2021.

VRAMP Analytics

Analytics in the context of internal comms and employee engagement is a game-changer. 48% of UK businesses don’t measure the effectiveness of their internal communications. That’s half of businesses who have no idea if their internal comms are achieving anything.

For those that do measure the performance of their internal communications they have complete visibility. They can see which departments in the organisation are most engaged and which aren’t, and they can see which content resonates the most. This level of insight enables them to make continual improvements to their approach so that engagement continues to increase. 

With analytics under your belts, you have the opportunity to use employee engagement as a real driving force to improve business output.

Analytics also brings more efficient ways of working within internal comms teams. With greater insight the team can hone in and focus on specific areas where improvements have been identified. Without analytics to identify such opportunities, most internal comms departments will try to cover all bases but only be able to do so with a very light touch. 

Due to the value analytics brings we have invested a lot of time perfecting the analytics functionality within VRAMP. 

How VRAMP analytics works

 For every article that is shared, VRAMP measures how well it has resonated with your employees. There are multiple measures that are all presented in an Overview dashboard. 

Using similar technology, VRAMP also displays results of surveys in an easy to digest way and this sits alongside the content statistics for a complete overview of every type of engagement. 

VRAMP is an all-encompassing employee engagement platform which enables our customers to send news, videos, images, files, forms and surveys. Our analytics features not only measure all of these, but it also measures any responses received from employees. By measuring every aspect of employee engagement VRAMP delivers hugely valuable insights that inform confident decisions. 

The information you will learn

 VRAMP goes beyond the traditional statistics we have all become familiar with through email marketing. Here is what you will be able to keep track of through VRAMP.

Read times

 While you can still see open and click rates through VRAMP you also receive a greater depth of information. Open rates only show you the effectiveness of the logistics that sit behind your communication processes.

Clicks give you a better indication of the value the recipient saw in the article because they are invested enough to click to find out more. But you may not always have something you want your employees to click through to. Read times give you a far more accurate representation of engagement and with VRAMPs algorithms working out the average read time for every article, you’ll know exactly what is resonating and what isn’t. 

Engagement score

 VRAMP provides an overall engagement score week-on-week. Detailed algorithms take different types of engagements into account and assign them a score. When combined, this becomes your engagement score. You can view your engagement score in real-time, week-on-week, or across a chosen data range. This enables you to benchmark and measure your performance very effectively. 

Level of employee interaction

 VRAMP is a two-way communication platform. Rather than just pushing communications out, our customers can also ask for feedback. In addition to surveys, employees can also comment on articles and use the emojis to show what they think of each article. Each of these interactions are measured and the level of variation week on week is displayed on your Overview screen. 

Survey completion rate

 When you send a survey you want to monitor how many employees have responded. VRAMP shows you this as a percentage enabling you to monitor progress, identify any fluctuations and react quickly to any concerns.  

Skills gaps

 Within each employee profile your team will list all relevant skills. Not only does this help colleagues to collaborate, it also helps you keep track of any skills gaps. You can see this at both company and team level with clear sight of the skills that are most prevalent and those that aren’t. The latter enables you to identify risks and address any learning and development requirements.

Top driver

Within VRAMP a Driver is a noteworthy topic. This is set by you so it could range from environmental factors through to team socials. Whatever Drivers you set, you can see which are of most interest at any given time giving you a good understanding of the topics your employees are most interested in. 

Employee Net Promoter Score

 Your Employee Net Promotor Score (eNPS) is a one question survey that measures how your employees feel about working at your organisation. It can be automatically scheduled at set intervals to give you a continuous way of measuring employee engagement.

Every time an eNPS survey is carried out you will see the percentage of employees who have responded and your overall eNPS score. These are displayed over time so that you can quickly and easily see how engaged your employees are.  

For more information on Employee Net Promoter Score check out our guide.

Your most engaged employees

 Engaged employees are very valuable. They can become very effective advocates who help to spread your positive message across the organisation. VRAMP shows you your most engaged employees so that you can engage them and expand your reach with other employees. 

What can be achieved with VRAMP analytics

 VRAMP will open the door for you to reach a new level of insight and engagement. Data is king and that is definitely the case with employee engagement. 

For starters, VRAMP enables our customers to communicate more transparently with employees. They can inform them why they are taking the approach they have and keep employees much more in the loop. This goes a long way to better engagement.

The level of insight also leads to more confident decisions on their own strategies but beyond that, our customers are able to make employee engagement a business KPI that is reported upon just like any traditional business KPI. They also use the data to build a business case for additional resource, tools or system.

See the difference VRAMP could make to you

 Book a demo to learn more about VRAMP and how you can implement it to better improve your internal comms and employee engagement.

Trevor Munday

Director

I’m quick thinking & make calculated decisions that help projects & clients move forward & not stall. Helping businesses deliver on their objectives through VRAMP’s internal communications system.

Relevant resources

Create internal comms

13th January, 2022. Create Internal Communications with Ease With VRAMP’s highly intuitive editor you can create visually appealing communications that your employees receive

Read More »
Categories
Guides

Employee Engagement Guide

1st December, 2021.

Table of Contents

Guide to employee engagement

In this guide, we will take you on a journey. Starting with the purpose and value of employee engagement before moving on to some strategies to help you improve and measure employee engagement in your organisation.  

What is employee engagement

Employee engagement is the measure of an employee’s emotional connection and commitment towards an organisation.

But while employee engagement is a measure of how an employee feels, it is the organisation that influences that opinion. Engage for Success explain this succinctly; “Employee engagement is a workplace approach resulting in the right conditions for all member of an organisation to give of their best each day.”

  • To the Top

Why is employee engagement important?

Employee engagement is proven to benefit businesses in multiple ways. Here are a few stats that evidence how: 

These facts speak for themselves and there are many more statistics online that further demonstrate the value of employee engagement, should you need them.  

  • To the Top

How employee engagement differs from employee satisfaction

Employee engagement and employee satisfaction often get intertwined but, actually, the two describe something very different.

As the definition above highlights, an engaged employee is someone who is committed to helping their organisation achieve their goals. In contrast, employee satisfaction describes someone that is happy in their job. For example, Tom works an 8-hour shift at a factory. He feels he has adequate breaks, the equipment and knowledge necessary to do his job and a decent salary. His commute is minimal and he takes home no stress from his job. Tom is satisfied with his job and yet if you were to ask him what the company’s goals were he has no idea. He does not consider himself to be part of the journey, he just works a job that he is contented with.

Contributing factors that influence employee satisfaction include salary, benefits, recognition and work-life balance.

In contrast, contributing factors that influence employee engagement include career opportunities, leadership behaviours, internal communication and company culture.

While there is a clear distinction between employee engagement and employee satisfaction it is important to note that the two are equally important. While an engaged employee can withstand a period of job dissatisfaction, if they cannot foresee improvements in the future, this is not sustainable and the majority of employees will only become engaged employees if they are first satisfied in their job.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explains this perfectly. It is only when an employee moves up through the psychological needs and into self-fulfilment needs that they will be engaged. The needs at the bottom of the pyramid must be in place before they can progress.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
  • To the Top

What other factors influence employee engagement?

Employee engagement is a combination of a wide range of factors. Below are 15 areas that all influence employee engagement, each of which should be considered within your employee engagement strategy. However, it is important to note the weight in which each factor holds over employee engagement will depend very much on the individual because different personalities will react differently to what they are presented with. 

15 factors that contribute to an engaged workforce

  1. The vision of the organisation – do employees know it and can they relate to it?
  2. The product or service – is the very purpose of the company something the employees are proud of?
  3. Trust – do employees trust the leadership and does the leadership trust the employees? Is there an appropriate level of autonomy?
  4. Transparency – do employees have a good understanding of business performance? Do they feel leaders are honest?
  5. Career opportunities – are employees able to progress their careers?
  6. Learning – are there adequate opportunities to expand knowledge and understanding?
  7. Equipment and tools – do all employees have everything they need to do their job well?
  8. Culture – is there an inclusive culture with behaviours that are consistently demonstrated?
  9. Employee voice – is there sufficient opportunity for employees to have their say and share their opinion? Are those opinions listened to?
  10. Recognition and reward – are pay scales fair? Do employees get recognised for outstanding work?
  11. Work-life balance – is employee wellbeing considered and supported?
  12. Responsiveness – is the organisation effective at responding to incidents and major factors that influence the business?
  13. Internal communication – is there an effective internal comms function that keeps employees connected to the wider business and company goals?
  14. Use of talent – do your employees fully utilise their individual talents within their role?
  15. Manager/employee relations – are your managers effective? Do they have the respect of their team?

The impact of different personalities

While the 15 points above all need to be considered, how they are received will depend upon the personality and behaviours of your employees. Whilst you cannot psychoanalysis each of your employees it is worth considering the traits when you are planning your engagement strategy, particularly if you have a lot of employees sitting either side of the camp. 

Below is an example of some of the traits and behaviours you can expect to see within engaged and disengaged employees. 

It is worth noting, a lot of these behaviours can be changed. With the right strategy you can influence these, but you will need to consider different strategies should you have people at polar opposites. You could also consider recruiting those displaying engaged traits to help you win over the less engaged team members.

  • To the Top

Who is responsible for employee engagement?

In short, everyone! Employee engagement impacts your entire organisation and is affected by every single relationship within it. Every individual within the business, therefore, has a role to play.

The role of HR

HR should foster a culture of engagement – becoming a leading example of how others in the organisation need to behave and ensuring the relevant policies and guidance are in place to support this. The HR team will also need to support and develop managers and manage any day-to-day matters that influence employee engagement. 

The role of leadership

All eyes are on the leadership team so they need to ooze with all the positive traits and behaviours that will drive employee engagement forward. From setting the company vision, to communicating effectively, to interacting with employees with respect. Your leadership team should become your employee engagement advocates and inspire employees through their own actions and behaviours. 

The role of managers

Managers are the linchpins that bring the aspirations of the business to life for employees. They must create a working environment that is transparent and respectful. One that fosters strong working relationships and supports employees with the day-to-day working life and career aspiration. This grounded and supportive approach, combined with their own demonstration of the values will encourage employees to engage.  

The role of employees

It is important not to lose sight of the value an individual employee can have on your employee engagement strategy. One highly engaged employee can often have far more influence on their peers than a manager. So, make sure you listen to them too. Ask them for feedback on your strategy; give them an opportunity to contribute and bring innovative ideas to the table. Also, remember that for them to be engaged they need to be empowered to make their own decisions. Checking that this is the case on a regular basis will always be beneficial.

  • To the Top

10 steps to improve employee engagement

For you to improve employee engagement you must first understand your current situation. In fact, analysis plays the biggest part in improving employee engagement; hence the first 8 points in the 10-step guide covering your existing ways of working.  

1) Understand what your employee engagement levels are – if you have been measuring employee engagement gather together all the data to understand your current situation. If you haven’t, it will be worth running an employee survey to find this out. Without this information, you cannot measure the success of the actions you are going to take.

2) Listen – if you recognise a need to improve employee engagement your first port of call to improve it should be your employees. What do they think? What is important to them? This will not only give you the basics of a strategy but also help you to prioritise.

3) Review your recognition scheme – consider whether your recognition scheme is effective. Are all employees recognised equally? Is that recognition well received? Do people get recognised for effort or for the time they’ve worked? If the latter, it may be time to review it. Similarly, are employees incentivised or recognised? While incentivising works with certain personality types others respond far better to recognition. Ensure you have the right balance for the right teams.

4) Review your development and training policies – if your employees state a lack of opportunity as an issue it will be beneficial to take time to explore your training and development policy. Does it meet the needs of ALL employees? Is it promoted effectively?

5) Review your wellness policy – how effective are you at supporting the wellness of your employees? This relates to both physical and mental wellbeing. Your approach should cover both an individual’s wellness and their understanding and appreciation of their colleague’s wellness.

6) Review your communication methods – a lack of transparency can often be a route cause for employee dissatisfaction. But this comes in two forms. Firstly a genuine lack of transparency in which information considered to be important to the employees simply isn’t getting through. This is a quick fix, assuming all management team members are on board.

The second is trickier – this is where employees perceive the organisation to be obscure and ambiguous. A perception is far harder to change, particularly if it is an incorrect perception. To resolve this issue you will need to strip things back and unearth where the perception stems from. Inevitably it will be a cultural issue, but you won’t be able to fix it until you fully understand where it stems from. Focus groups, employee surveys and 1:1s will all be an effective way to drill into this. All will require time but depending on the depth of the challenge, this is likely to be time well spent.

7) Review your onboarding process – how successful are you in embedding your company culture with your new starters? This should be from the very first engagement they have with you at the job application stage all the way through to their onboarding process when they start their employment with you.

8) Review your cultural values and mission – are your company values demonstrated in the actions and behaviours of all your employees? Are your employees bought into your mission?

If employees aren’t connected with your mission there are three possible reasons:

1. They are unaware of it

2. They do not believe in it

3. There is something else within their workplace that holds them back

If your values aren’t being demonstrated there are typically just two reasons:

1. They are the wrong values for your organisation

2. Your wider company culture prevents these values from being displayed.

Your task will be to understand the reason and then dig deeper to find the root cause.

9) Put a plan together – improving employee engagement is a long-term commitment. While you are likely to have some short-term fixes, many of the improvements you make will take time. By putting together a roadmap of your plans and communicating this with your employees they will be able to see your commitment to improved employee engagement.

10) Measure employee engagement – there is no point in embarking on an employee engagement improvement programme if you do not have measures in place to monitor their success. The more you can measure the more confident you can be in the decisions you make. This is a vital step so we have detailed ways in which you can measure employee engagement in the section below. 

 
  • To the Top

How to measure employee engagement

The purpose of employee engagement is to improve the experience of your employees and the performance of your business. Measuring your progress is therefore critical. But despite this 48% of businesses do not measure the effectiveness of employee engagement. To avoid implementing employee engagement strategies that go unrecognised here are some effective ways to measure their success. 

1) Employee engagement – perhaps an obvious point but one that many organisations overlook. Often because it isn’t currently something they measure. But it is very easy to measure how engaged your employees are with the right tools and processes in place. 

First, you need to consider how frequently you are going to measure employee engagement: 

  • At a set period of time – select a set time of the year in which you survey employees and use the results as a measure. That may be part of a wider staff survey or specifically an employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS). The sole purpose of which is to measure employee engagement.
  • Continuously – some organisations prefer to have a real-time view of employee engagement. This is beneficial if you have a number of variables that could impact a one-off score, such as a seasonal peak in work pressure for example.

Another factor to consider is whether you want to measure employee engagement purely as an entire company or whether it would be useful to understand at a team level too. This is usually dictated by company size and/or your processes. Larger organisations typically benefit from greater insight at a team level purely because of their scale. But some organisations also choose to drill down deeper because they have the internal processes to be able to effectively respond to any dissatisfaction. By picking this up at the team level, these organisations can be very responsive and start resolving the challenges that cause the disengagement before it affects others in the organisation. 

Once you have decided the above you then need to decide how you are going to measure employee engagement.

If you have an employee engagement platform this will all be done for you. The software will automatically monitor interactions with your internal communications and, taking many different factors into consideration, give you real-time engagement scores.

If you don’t have employee engagement software, you can run an employee survey. Either of the following would be suitable. 

  • Employee surveys can include a section that asks people about their level of engagement. These questions should be consistent every time they are asked to give you accurate results.
  • eNPS surveys – an employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is an effective way of measuring employee engagement. With just one question you can quickly gauge engagement levels providing a solid benchmark to work from. 

Whichever method you choose from above, we recommend you use the results alongside some, or preferably all, of the following:

2) Staff turnover/employee retention – by keeping tabs on how many people are leaving your organisation you can get a good indication of the scale of disengagement. 

If you have them record historical figures because until you have these you have no benchmark to work from. 

3) Exit interviews – as employees leave you could get some valuable insight into why they felt disengaged. This will often provide a depth you can’t gain elsewhere so it is worth tuning into this data source. You may also want to consider adding some specific questions around engagement in the exit interview for more direct feedback.  

4) Absenteeism rates – a study by Gallup found that disengaged employees have a 37% higher absenteeism rate than their engaged counterparts. Monitoring your absentee rates will be a valuable addition to your statistics. It is also a great early indicator for disengagement which will always be helpful.

5) Productivity – evidence shows that disengaged employees are less productive. You are likely to already have ways of measuring productivity, whether through output statistics or 1:1s. By reviewing these historically at a team or company level, you will be able to identify trends. 

While engagement may be the cause of decreased productivity it is important to remember there could be many other causes too, such as process failings, silo working and inefficient tools or equipment. This statistic should therefore always be aligned with others to see if the trends marry with other findings. 

6) Profitability – a very high-level factor but as we know, engaged employees do result in greater profitability so it is worth measuring this connection. If nothing else, it can be used to help evidence the value of employee engagement.

7) Customer satisfaction – organisations with top quartile engagement scores average 12% higher customer advocacy. It is therefore valuable to keep tabs of customer satisfaction alongside employee engagement so that you can observe trends. As with profitability, this will also be a useful data point to evidence the success of employee engagement.

There is a reason that ‘measuring employee engagement’ is the biggest section in this guide. Measuring the performance of your employee engagement strategy is absolutely vital. Without it you cannot deliver communications your employees want to hear, you cannot identify ways to improve employee engagement and you cannot evidence the value your employee engagement efforts are having on the wider business.

 
  • To the Top

Conclusion

If you’ve reached the end of this blog well done, there was a lot to get through! What your dedication suggests is that you are clearly committed to either beginning, or improving, employee engagement within your organisation.

The information above should help you to build that strategy, but employee engagement is a big project. In a recent study, we found that half of those responsible for employee engagement spend less than a quarter of their working time on the function.

If you too are going to be stretched on time focus on doing less, but more effectively. Deploying a tactic and having the right measures in place to monitor its performance will offer you far more value than deploying many tactics with no ability to measure them.

An employee engagement platform would also be a big time saving. VRAMP customers can send internal communications and surveys quickly to whoever they are relevant for. Then they receive feedback from employees with data presented in easy-to-digest dashboards. It’s a one stop shop for all employee engagement requirements. Find out more about VRAMP here.

  • To the Top
daniel wright

Daniel Wright

Marketing Assistant

With a desire to grow personally and a wish to improve working lives through employee engagement, I am thrilled to be part of building an internal comms system that connects everyone.

Relevant resources

what is employee engagement

Employee Engagement?

What is Employee Engagement? To answer the question “What is employee engagement?” let’s turn to the famous visit President John F Kennedy made

Read More »
Categories
Infographics

Employee Engagement Stats

18th November, 2021.

Employee Engagement Statistics: Now is the time for change

As The Great Resignation becomes a very real threat for many UK businesses there has never been a greater need to find effective ways to retain our employees.

While employee engagement is a carefully considered strategy for some UK organisations it is typically only the large organisations that put great emphasis on these areas. Rightfully so, with tens of thousands of employees, they have the greatest risk.

A report from Oxford Economics revealed that it costs £30,614 to replace a single employee. This figure considers the lost output while an individual gets up to speed, predicting that it takes 28 weeks to reach optimum productivity.

Prior to ‘The Great Resignation’, the UK average employee turnover rate was approximately 15%. Apply this to an organisation with 10,000 employees and combine the costs to replace those employees and the figures are eye watering:

10,000 employees -15% = 1,500

1,500 x £30,614 = £45,921,000

These figures immediately justify an employee engagement strategy for large organisations. But, when some reports suggest The Great Resignation could see staff turnover increase by 40% the problem becomes enormous no matter how many people you employ.  

Our research into the State of Play of UK Employee Engagement showed that UK organisations are not currently making the necessary shift. The infographic below draws out some of the key employee engagement statistics from our report.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, there are some enlightening case studies out there of organisations that have utilised employee engagement to bring security to their business. The infographic below also includes statistics from those organisations that are already realising the benefits of an engaged workforce.

So, while change is required by many, an engaged workforce is attainable. Now is the time to invest in our employees. After all, an engaged workforce could be a force to be reckoned with in our current climate.

To discover more about the state of UK employee engagement download our free report.

Alternatively, if you are looking for employee engagement software to support your employee engagement strategy book a demo of VRAMP today. 

daniel wright

Daniel Wright

Marketing Assistant

With a desire to grow personally and a wish to improve working lives through employee engagement, I am thrilled to be part of building an internal comms system that connects everyone.

Relevant resources

Categories
Blog Employee Engagement

Problems with Employee Engagement

10th November, 2021.

The 15 most common problems with employee engagement and how to fix them

Employee engagement is a huge job. Not only do you need to engage your employees, but you also need to keep abreast of any changes and manage your internal processes.

With so many plates to spin it is no surprise that only 22% of companies know what’s driving employee disengagement.

But when employee engagement has been proven to reduce staff turnover rates, improve productivity and increase profits it is essential that you iron out any issues quickly. If you needed any further motivation, a study by Bain found that an employee who feels engaged and inspired is 125% more productive than an employee who is just ‘satisfied.

With so many gains available when employee engagement rates increase let’s explore what prevents improvements in employee engagement and the solutions for overcoming those problems. When considering the most common problems, they can be categorised into three groups:

1) Your employees

Your employees work differently and think differently. With such an array of different minds, it can be very difficult to engage with everybody. But for those who are less engaged, there are a number of reasons that directly impact how they feel that could be holding them back.

2) Your business

The nature of your business and the managerial team leading the business all impact your employee engagement efforts. It is here that there will be numerous variables, such as a managerial change or a business acquisition, that could rock your perfectly aligned employee engagement boat at any time.

3) Your way of working

How you deliver your employee engagement strategy is often overshadowed by the two points above. But your processes and tools are just as important to the smooth running of your employee engagement strategy than the other two points.

This blog explores the five most common employee engagement problems for each category and how to fix them.

Your employees

Your employees are the very reason that you have an employee engagement strategy. They are the driving force of your organisation but inevitably there will always be stumbling blocks. Here are the most common challenges and how to overcome them.

1) A lack of recognition or development opportunities

If an employee doesn’t feel appreciated, they will rapidly become disengaged. Everyone needs to feel like they are contributing to the overall success of a company and 37% of employees state recognition as the most important motivator.

Recognition will come in various forms ranging from a simple “thank you” to a bonus scheme or benefits package. While you may already have some of these in place, are you consistent with your recognition?

Closely linked to recognition is the opportunity for progression. Career development is the number one reason why employees leave their job. If they cannot see an avenue for growth, whether that is a different job or training to improve their skills, they will become unmotivated and disengaged.

The solution: Your resolution to this problem will depend upon the extent of your existing approach. If you already have recognition and training & development programmes in place you may need to focus more on communication. If you do not yet have anything official, your first step will be to create recognition and development strategies. The list below will act as a checklist to ensure you have everything in place to give your employees the recognition and progression they need to feel engaged.

  • A clear recognition policy – all line managers need to know when recognition is warranted because any inconsistencies will cause frustration. Linking recognition with company values could be a good way of ensuring this consistency.
  • A culture of acknowledgement – a simple “thank you” goes a long way. With the right company culture, employees and line managers will naturally show their appreciation for a colleague who has helped them or gone above and beyond.
  • A training & development programme – if you don’t have a formal programme in place this should be your first port of call. A clear process for employees and line managers will be essential to support the growth of your employees.
  • Regular one-to-ones and annual reviews – it is important to set time aside for each employee to discuss their work. A study by Forbes found that 43% of highly engaged employees receive feedback at least once a week. A structured meeting to be able to discuss performance and to raise concerns or desires is key to encouraging employees to have these conversations.
  • Ensure awareness – some employees may simply not know about your recognition programmes and training and development schemes. Regular communication about what is available will act as a constant reminder of what employees have available to them.

2) Day-to-day frustrations

A standalone frustration is barely given a thought but a frustration experienced day-in-day-out soon becomes a barrier to employee engagement.

This could be a laborious process, a dirty work environment or a disrespectful colleague. No matter how severe the frustration, if nothing is done about it, in time, it will cause disengagement.

The solution: The first step is to know about the frustrations. Employees must have an outlet; a means in which they can share their frustrations. Line managers should always make themselves available but some employees may not feel comfortable discussing their frustration with their direct report. Suggestion boxes, employee surveys and staff forums are all good alternatives to give employees additional channels to raise their frustrations.

Once you know the frustrations it will be important to take action. If those frustrations are likely to have impacted others in the organisation communicate the solution to them too.

There may be some instances where a resolution cannot be found. If that is the case communication is more important than ever. The moment employees think their employer isn’t listening is the moment you start to see a decline in employee engagement.

3) A lack of collaboration

If your employees lack interaction with colleagues this not only impacts how well they can do their job, it may also prevent innovation.

The more you can connect your employees the more they will take accountability, the more they will learn and the more they will achieve.

Ultimately, a collaborative way of working drives empowerment. An empowered workforce will feel able to make their own decisions, contribute more and achieve more. All of which breeds satisfaction and, in turn, employee engagement.

The solution: No matter how your employees work, it is essential that you find ways for them to collaborate. Whether that is an employee directory which people can search to find a colleague to help them, regular social events to encourage interactions or a central location to find forms and documents.

If you don’t have the processes in place to connect people, you may want to explore a software option to help you. Many employee engagement platforms include employee directories and document libraries to bring all your information and people together. You also have the added bonus of being able to send your internal communications and employee surveys through the same platform which will help you consolidate the number of systems you use.

4) Poor direction

The leadership experienced by your employees is a major influence on their engagement. If they do not have a clear direction, they will lose faith in their leadership and the business as a whole.

Employees need to know what is expected of them and those expectations need to be realistic, clear, and concise. They need to witness their manager displaying the same behaviours that are expected of them and they need confidence that their manager makes the right decisions.

Employees also require their managers to be consistent. Any fluctuations in their interactions will cause distrust.

The solution: Ultimately each of your managers should successfully carry out these duties:

  • Maintain the smooth running of their business function
  • Communicate transparently and effectively
  • Translate business goals into functional individual goals
  • Plan set goals and report on progress
  • Manage team projects and finances
  • Resolve problems and issues
  • Support employees on their growth aspirations
  • Ensure a safe and secure working environment for their staff

If you recognise gaps in any of your managerial team’s abilities these need to be addressed through training. This could be peer-to-peer training or through an external provider.

Even if your managers tick all these bullet points it may be worth exploring further training to maximise the way your managers interact with employees. The one thing that sets a good manager apart from an excellent manager is their ability to truly understand an employee. The exemplary managers identify what makes someone tick and what qualities they have and then convert this understanding into a way to harness their way of thinking and unique skills. This individualised approach harnesses what each person has to offer and uses it to drive business performance.

While this is a difficult skill to learn, if you are in the position to work with managers to develop the skill, you are likely to see a significant increase in employee engagement.

5) Not being heard

As much as employees want to hear relevant information relating to them, their jobs, and the business, they also want to be heard. Generally speaking, organisations have become very good at communicating out but often overlook how to effectively receive information.

One route often taken is employee surveys. But many confuse employee surveys with conversations. While they do a brilliant job of gathering opinions, the feedback received only relates to the questions asked and they don’t enable employees to discuss the topic. They also only represent a snapshot in time.

Gathering feedback in this way is now very alien to us. Societally we live in a world of immediacy in which we rarely have to wait. Therefore, within the workplace, if an employee has to wait to share their opinion it is likely to cause frustration and disengagement.

The solution: Give your employees a consistent voice. Find ways in which employees can share their ideas, opinions, and concerns.

Tools for employee engagement such as an employee communications platform often enable employees to like and comment on the internal communications that are shared. This constant opportunity to provide feedback means that thoughts are captured in the moment. Employees won’t forget to mention an idea or brew on a frustration.

While employee surveys are not the sole answer to two-way communications, they do still play a part. They enable you to drill deeper into specific topics and when used alongside other methods for gathering feedback, you will have a much more thorough and fluid two-way communication process.

The fundamental rule to remember with all feedback that you gather is to listen and respond. Employees will be buoyed by the opportunity to share their feedback but if they feel that information is falling on deaf ears they will disengage.

Your business

Your business is the reason employees took the job in the first place. Whether it was the role itself, the culture, the business proposition, or the stage of growth; something about the business will have attracted that individual to pursue their career with your organisation. But the business and the way it is run is often the cause of a lot of employee dissatisfaction. Here are five problems that frequently hamper employee engagement:

1) Not having leadership buy-in

Your employee engagement strategy will only be successful if your leadership team believe in it. Our ‘State of UK Employee Engagement’ survey found that 17% of UK businesses state a lack of leadership buy-in as their greatest challenge when undertaking employee communications and engagement.

If your leadership team disagree on the route your strategy is taking or the effectiveness of employee engagement your success will be hampered.

The solution: If you are aware of sceptics within your organisation you may want to create (or reshare) your business case for employee engagement. Depending on the level of scepticism it may also be beneficial to get all your leaders together to discuss your strategy.

Until you have a unified leadership team who agree with your approach and live and breath your strategy, you will not be able to maximise engagement. It is worth persevering until you reach this point.

2) A non-inclusive strategy

A business is only successful because of its people. That includes everyone from a caretaker to the chief executive. Every individual needs to be considered when executing an employee engagement strategy. The famous John F Kennedy interaction with the NASA janitor is a perfect case in point. When asked what he did for NASA the janitor responded with “I’m helping put a man on the moon”.

This is an organisation that had very effectively communicated with the janitor. He knew his purpose and how he was contributing to the business goals.

For many businesses, while they have plans to include everyone, the logistics often get in the way. Depending on their job role some employees can be “hard to reach” and subsequently get forgotten about or receive information secondhand.

The solution: First of all ensure you have an inclusive employee engagement plan. Do you have communications that accommodate everyone? Will those communications resonate with everyone and help them understand how they contribute to the wider business goals?

The next step is to look at your processes for communicating? Do you reach all employees effectively? The word ‘effectively’ is key here. Does everyone receive information in a timely manner? Are you confident that messages aren’t lost in translation? So often the hard-to-reach employees, such as those on the frontline, receive information through a printed email put on a noticeboard or via a team briefing. These methods of communication do not guarantee a message has been received as you intended it.

Thankfully technology is now able to plug this gap, breaking down the barriers that have historically been in place. With an employee engagement platform, you can send communications directly to every single employee through the use of mobile apps. Where or when they work no longer needs to interfere with what information they receive and when they hear it.

3) A corporate culture that fights against your employee engagement strategy

The culture of a business can severely hamper employee engagement. Is there an expectation for employees to work beyond their contracted hours? Do some line managers struggle to instil open and honest communication channels? Is a lack of punctuality common?

The definition of company culture is the shared beliefs and behaviours that guide the actions of all team members. If your organisation has a dysfunctional culture that doesn’t emulate positive traits it will impact the levels of engagement you can achieve. Something as simple as not respecting an employee’s time and regularly turning up to meetings late will have an impact on that individual’s engagement.

The solution: Improving your company culture is a big task, but if you recognise downfalls in your culture you must tackle it if you want to see an increase in employee engagement. You need to create an environment of trust, alignment, collaboration and resilience.

Your starting point will need to be your leaders. You will need to have an open and honest conversation with them about your organisation’s culture. They will need to support you in understanding what is and isn’t working culturally before you can embark on remodelling your culture.

When you know what needs to change, once again this needs to start with your leaders. They need to become advocates who live and breathe the culture. Only once that example is set can you expect employees to adjust their behaviours.

Then it’s all down to communication. An effective communication strategy that outlines what you have done and why will help to accelerate the adoption of your new positive culture.

It won’t change overnight but your efforts will be worth it in the long term.

4) Poor alignment to company objectives

If your employees are disconnected from your company objectives it is often due to a lack of understanding. While company objectives are discussed heavily within the boardroom, the passion and belief displayed behind closed doors are often lost by the time it is communicated to the rest of the workforce.

Another common downfall is that employees understand the objectives but do not think they are achievable. This can be more damaging than if the objectives have been miscommunicated because of the negative connotations. Negativity spreads quicker than positivity so one person’s opinion can quickly spread to become the opinion of many.

The solution: Your employees need to not just understand the reason behind the objectives but also what part they play in meeting those objectives. When communicating your objectives, rather than doing a mass communication to everyone, break it down into different teams and explain specifically what it means to them.

It’s also important to remember that while objectives are set once a year, they last for that entire 12-month period. Communicating with them at the beginning of the year isn’t enough. Your employees need to know progress along the way which will also act as a gentle reminder of the objectives. By keeping employees connected to your objectives throughout the year they are far more likely to buy into them, and to your company as a whole.

5) Significant change

As businesses grow and develop change will always happen. That could be a change in the management team, a change of business direction, an acquisition, or the introduction of a new system. Whatever the change it is likely to unsettle some of your employees. It is human nature to resist change so this is to be expected. Therefore, during any period of change, we must work particularly hard to maintain employee engagement.

The solution: it’s important to understand the reasons behind people’s fear of change. This article neatly summarises the emotions people may be feeling and helps to put their reactions into perspective. By taking a moment to appreciate how your employees may feel during a time of change you can then create a communication plan that supports them step-by-step through the change.

For every change communication you create remember to include information about what is changing, how that change will affect them, what is expected of them and what the next steps will be. By following this pattern with every communication you will help your employees adjust quicker and reduce the risk of disengaging them.

Your way of working

The way your employees feel and perceive things and the way your business functions will directly influence employee engagement. However, there are also a number of aspects within the HR/communications team that could be inhibiting your employee engagement efforts. When you are working so hard to drive up employee engagement you need to ensure that your ship is sailing at full throttle. The most common challenges our customers come to us with are:

1) Unrealistic expectations

These unrealistic expectations could be on yourself or your team.

Often this is an unrealistic expectation of time; trying to squeeze too many tasks into not enough time. This is a very common challenge with 38% of employee engagement professionals stating time as their biggest challenge in our recent State of UK Employee Engagement survey.

The survey also found that over half of those responsible for employee engagement spend less than 25% of their time on this function. With so many plates to spin at any given time, it is easy to see how expectations can increase beyond capability.

The solution: If you and/or your team carry out employee engagement activities as part of another role it would be advisable to have a discussion with the relevant managers to discuss the balance. You may want to create a business case to increase the hours spent on employee engagement. Or you may just need to define the lines between the roles more clearly.

You may also find value in reviewing everyone’s roles within your team. Does everyone understand the part they play? Do they know what their responsibilities are and the deadlines that sit alongside their duties? Do they agree that these are attainable? Are you utilising all their skills effectively or would it be beneficial to switch some of the responsibilities?

If time is particularly tight with no immediate solution, could you recruit some advocates from the wider business? Even if it is to help promote a single engagement initiative, their passion for what you do could be really beneficial.

2) Silo working

Silos are very common within employee engagement teams. They are often caused because of a dispersed workforce or individuals having multiple job roles.

As such, tasks may be owned by just one individual or data may only be accessible by a single team that has multiple other priorities that sit above your request.

Whatever the silo you experience, it will be causing inefficiencies, frustrations and open you up to risk.

The solution: Collaboration! By introducing a more collaborative way of working you will no longer have a need for silos.

If multiple people work on different tasks consider adopting a task management system in which everyone in the team can view all of the tasks and who is responsible for them. This will give you a single source of truth that will provide confidence and a more efficient way of working.

If certain skills sit with just one employee explore training and development opportunities for other individuals so you always have at least two people capable of any given task.

If you experience silos within your processes, such as a bottleneck when accessing data, is there another way this could be done? Are there alternative systems or integration options that would simplify the process? Are there other teams or colleagues that could support with the project? Or do you just need a formalised process to ensure you receive the information in a timely fashion?

3) Limited budget

Employee engagement is often last to receive a budget. It’s a relatively new business function and as such, often goes unmissed during budget planning. Instead, those responsible for employee engagement often put forward a business case for specific expenditure as it is needed rather than having their own budget to manage throughout the year.

In other situations, the budget simply doesn’t match aspirations restricting what is achievable.

The solution: Push hard to get an allotted budget for employee engagement. As is the case for any ‘new’ budget, this will be a difficult task. Anyone in finance will be reluctant to hand money over when there is no hard proof that there will be a Return on Investment (ROI)!

Use as much evidence as you can to prove your case. Whether that is an initiative that previously had funding that has had a positive impact or a use case from another business that is representative of your aspirations. The more figures you can provide to evidence the benefits gained from having the budget the more likely you are to be successful. You may find our guide on ‘Building the business case for employee engagement’ useful during this process.

If you feel a larger budget is required, once again evidence is your answer. Use the budget you have but ensure you measure the success of that investment every step of the way. Once you can show the ROI you are far more likely to be able to negotiate a larger budget.

Whilst you work to increase your funding you will become very skilled at making the most of what you have! But there are many others in exactly the same boat so build connections with these people. Explore what communities you could join to exchange ideas and tips.

4) The wrong tools for the job

Due to the resource implication and fear of change, it can be easy to stick with a tool even if it isn’t meeting all your needs. You may customise the system to get it doing what you need but there are inevitably always workarounds or compromises. These workarounds open greater possibilities for human error and over time the workarounds become more and more cumbersome.

If you have an established employee engagement strategy you may also be suffering from having too many solutions. Jumping from one system to another will have a knock-on effect on productivity. You may also find it difficult to compare data from two systems because of the way the information is collated or displayed.

The solution: As a team, audit your processes and systems. It’s important to take this step back from your day-to-day roles and consider if the systems you use are providing the best outcome. While they may have been the best tools for the job two years ago there may be better solutions available to you now. Likewise, two years ago one of your solutions may not have had the same level of capability it has now. Upon review, you may find that you could easily consolidate your systems.

Once you have carried out an evaluation, schedule in the next one. By keeping these review sessions regular you will keep on top of your needs and encourage your team to stay curious, always exploring how improvements could be achieved.

5) A lack of valuable insight

Our recent study found that 48% of UK businesses do not monitor the effectiveness of their internal comms. Further to this, another study identified that only 55% of companies regularly diagnose their employee engagement data.

That’s approximately half of UK businesses that are running employee engagement tactics without any insight into to how effective they are. If you too lack useful insight, this is a quick win that could transform your employee engagement efforts.

The solution: If you have unused data your first step is to study that information to identify what it tells you. Based on this research you can identify any data gaps; considering what information would really help inform your strategy.

If the data you have available is limited you may want to look at a software tool that could help you collate and interpret more information. Tools such as employee engagement software will enable you to send internal communications and employee surveys whilst also collating data from each activity you undertake. Many of these software solutions analyse the data for you, automatically providing comparisons and key performance measures. This could save you significant time and give you greater confidence in your decision making.

However, you choose to record and analyse your data, as a bare minimum we recommend you measure the following:

  • Open rates, and preferably engagement rates, for each internal communication that you send.
  • Employee engagement levels per team and company over time.
  • Employee absenteeism and staff turnover rates.

With this information at your fingertips you will not only be able to better inform your future actions, but also help to evidence your success. This evidence can then help to drive future initiatives and funding.

daniel wright

Daniel Wright

Marketing Assistant

With a desire to grow personally and a wish to improve working lives through employee engagement, I am thrilled to be part of building an internal comms system that connects everyone.

Relevant resources

what is employee engagement

Employee Engagement?

What is Employee Engagement? To answer the question “What is employee engagement?” let’s turn to the famous visit President John F Kennedy made

Read More »
Categories
VRAMP Features

Our employee survey platform

26th October 2021

What our employee survey platform offers

Employee surveys are an excellent way of gathering employee feedback and measuring employee engagement. They can enable you to drill down into specific topics giving you an informed outcome to direct future strategies.

With so much value attainable from employee surveys our development team has invested a lot of time ensuring our employee survey tools give you intuitive functionality that collates quality information.

How it works

From a single employee communications platform, you can send internal communications and employee surveys. This combined approach reduces the number of systems you need to use and keeps all of your communications in one place.

Surveys can be sent via the desktop application, email or mobile app enabling you to reach a greater proportion of your employees.

The types of employee surveys you can send

Our employee survey platform provides the tools you need whether you want to send a quick one off poll or a reoccurring staff satisfaction survey. Below is a list of VRAMP’s survey capabilities:

Multiple question survey

Whether an annual employee satisfaction survey or a training and development survey, VRAMP enables you to create your own bespoke surveys with ease. For more in-depth surveys use our conditional logic functionality to move through the surveys smoothly.

With different answer formats available each of your surveys will be neatly presented to your employees making it very easy for them to respond.

Pulse survey

Pulse surveys are a quick way to gauge opinion on a very specific subject. Usually consisting of just one or two questions, pulse surveys generally collate opinions on a regular basis. VRAMP enables you to set up and schedule your pulse surveys with ease. Once set up, all you will need to do is to monitor the responses.

eNPS survey

The employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) measures employee engagement from one question. Simply set up your question, choose the intervals you wish to measure your eNPS and VRAMP does everything else for you.

For more information about the employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) and how to get the most out of an eNPS survey read our eNPS guide.

Getting your employee surveys in front of the right people

Sometimes you may want feedback from everyone but at other times the survey may only relate to a small group of people. Our employee survey platform enables you to choose who receives your survey through our easy to use segmentation options. By honing who you send your surveys to you can ensure you only involve the people the survey is relevant and of interest to. All of which maximises employee engagement!

Analysing the results of employee surveys

Sending the survey is the first step, now it is time to interpret the results and ensure your employee’s feedback doesn’t go to waste. Our employee survey platform does the hard work for you. All of your results are presented in a dashboard showing you the answers to each question together with performance statistics such as how many people have answered the survey, how many have abandoned the survey mid way through and the overall engagement score. You can also compare surveys side by side and export your data for further analysis. This straightforward way of digesting the results makes it far easier to reach conclusions. Furthermore, with your employee surveys directly linked to your internal communications platform, you can communicate the results with ease too.

Find out more

To see our employee survey platform in action request a demo of VRAMP and we’ll show you around.

Trevor Munday

Director

I’m quick thinking & make calculated decisions that help projects & clients move forward & not stall. Helping businesses deliver on their objectives through VRAMP’s internal communications system.

Relevant resources

Analytics

1st December, 2021. VRAMP Analytics Analytics in the context of internal comms and employee engagement is a game-changer. 48% of UK businesses don’t

Read More »

Create internal comms

13th January, 2022. Create Internal Communications with Ease With VRAMP’s highly intuitive editor you can create visually appealing communications that your employees receive

Read More »
Categories
VRAMP Features

Email Capability

8th October, 2021.

VRAMP now provides even more flexibility from one employee communication platform

VRAMP has always enabled you to deliver communications that resonate with every single employee. But now, our employee communication platform gives your employees even more choice.

You can still listen to your employees and understand what they want to be updated on and you can still send quality, visually appealing communications. But now you can choose whether to distribute your messages via the mobile app (and desktop version) or via email.

No matter which channel you choose to share your messages, you will still see our highly informative analytics that reveals a complete picture of which communications your employees are most engaged with. So, when you select this alternative communication channel you will still benefit from all of the existing perks of VRAMP.

As a SaaS business, we are constantly developing our product. This feature was developed following user feedback because we believe there is no one better to guide the development of our employee communication platform than our customers.

How VRAMP's email distribution channel will benefit your employees

With this additional communication channel, your employees now have greater choice. Should they wish to keep all their information in their inbox, now they can.

If you’re not sure which channel they would prefer to receive company communications via you can just ask them through a VRAMP employee survey. VRAMP has everything under one roof making it easy for you to interact with your employees and for them to share their preferences and opinions.

How VRAMP's email distribution channel will benefit you

In addition to knowing that you are offering your employees greater flexibility, this new feature will also make your life easier. If you previously sent messages via email AND an alternative communication platform now you will only have to create your message once instead of duplicating and reformatting your work. You simply create your message in VRAMP and select the channels that you want it to be sent through. And that’s it!
At VRAMP we firmly believe in improving the working lives of employees. That includes your working life as well as all the employees you communicate with!

This software development provides yet another weapon in your arsenal to improve employee engagement. If you would like to see more of what VRAMP can offer, sign up for a free demo or contact us with any questions you have.

Trevor Munday

Director

I’m quick thinking & make calculated decisions that help projects & clients move forward & not stall. Helping businesses deliver on their objectives through VRAMP’s internal communications system.

Relevant resources

Analytics

1st December, 2021. VRAMP Analytics Analytics in the context of internal comms and employee engagement is a game-changer. 48% of UK businesses don’t

Read More »

Email Capability

8th October, 2021. VRAMP now provides even more flexibility from one employee communication platform VRAMP has always enabled you to deliver communications that

Read More »
Categories
Blog Employee Engagement

UK employee engagement?

7th October 2021.

How good is the UK at employee engagement?

Employee engagement is on a journey in the UK. The term “employee engagement” only started to enter discussions 40 years ago and the concept of having a business function responsible for employee engagement is an even newer concept.

For the organisations that have embraced employee engagement and weaved it into their culture and business strategy, they are now reaping the rewards. These statistics from Engage for Success  speak for themselves:

  • Businesses with engagement scores in the top quartile had twice the annual net profit of those in the bottom quartile.
  • Organisations in the top quartile of employee engagement scores had 18% higher productivity than those in the bottom quartile.
  • Organisations with high levels of engagement have 40% lower staff turnover rates than companies with lower levels of engagement.
  • Organisations with top quartile engagement scores average 12% higher customer advocacy.

But despite the very clear business benefits of employee engagement, we are still presented with statistics that paint a bleak picture for much of the UK workforce.

Driven by the statistics above, we wanted to find out just how good, or bad, UK businesses are at employee engagement. More specifically, we wanted to understand how widespread employee engagement is as a standalone business function. Is it still predominately the big brand organisations that are the masters of employee engagement or has the ethos trickled down into smaller organisations?

To find out we embarked on a survey in which we interviewed over 200 internal communication professionals.

The results show that the evolution of employee engagement still has a long way to go in much of the UK.

For example, our research found that 48% of UK organisations do not monitor the effectiveness of their internal comms. That’s almost half of UK organisations that carry out internal communications completely blind with absolutely no idea how those messages are being received.

The research did however find some glimmers of hope. Employee engagement is now more widespread with many mid-sized organisations starting to consider how it can benefit their businesses. There are also some sectors that shine much brighter than their counterparts.

Have a look at the report – UK Employee Engagement: The State of Play – to see how your organisation compares. The report also includes guidance on how you can overcome the blockers that are preventing you from evolving your employee engagement strategy.

daniel wright

Daniel Wright

Marketing Assistant

With a desire to grow personally and a wish to improve working lives through employee engagement, I am thrilled to be part of building an internal comms system that connects everyone.

Relevant resources

what is employee engagement

Employee Engagement?

What is Employee Engagement? To answer the question “What is employee engagement?” let’s turn to the famous visit President John F Kennedy made

Read More »