How often do you think about employee engagement? If you’re anything like other home service business owners, commitment is probably right up there with great company culture as something you’d love just to happen.

But employee engagement and a great company culture are important for any business owner to work to create, not just mega-corporations. Your employees are the face, voice and hands of your company. How they speak about your business can help or hurt it.

When they’re at work, is your team just doing what it takes to draw a paycheck, or are they involved and invested in the health of the business? When your team is engaged and believes in the value of their work and mission, they create better solutions for you and your customers. They provide better customer service, which leads to improved customer loyalty and referrals. They even build your team through word-of-mouth technician referrals, an incredibly important factor in this tight labor market.

So, if you’re not taking time to make sure your workforce is engaged, you’re probably leaving money on the table. According to Forbes (https://bit.ly/3dilG4E), through a combination of absenteeism and lost productivity, a disengaged employee will cost you $3,400 for every $10,000 you pay them.

How do you increase employee engagement? What can you do to make things better? You can’t create engagement from the top down. You have to get your employees’ input, and one great way is with employee surveys. But you might need a third party to help craft and distribute an anonymous survey to your employees if you want to get honest, actionable feedback.

Why surveys?

It’s not rocket science — to create real employee engagement, employees have to be involved in the process. You need to find out why they’re disengaged, and anonymous surveys are the best way to get you the data you need.

Offering a survey is also the first step on the road to letting your employees feel heard and understood. The act of asking for feedback invites your team to be more engaged, showing them that you care about their feelings and opinions.

Crafting the survey can be tricky, though. You need to create questions that aren’t leading or biased to get actionable data. Having the review conducted by a third party will make it easier to ask the hard questions that will get at the heart of what’s going wrong. You should also include questions to see how well your employees know the company’s core values. 

Be sure to collect feedback on all your managers’ performance, the quality of employees’ training and communication and, of course, what could make things better.

To take personal feelings out of the equation, reach outside your organization for help writing the questions and distributing the survey to your employees for their anonymous feedback. A third party such as a home service specialist agency, for example, can take your input and craft surveys in unbiased, neutral language.

Make a change

Once you have the results of your survey, it’s time to create change. To ensure you’re creating engagement and not forcing what you think should be the solution, involve key leadership in the process, too.

Start by being transparent about the results. If you are open and honest about what’s going on in your company, your team will see you’re serious about change. 

This plan could be as simple as crafting a new mission and vision statement, or it could mean sweeping change for your company culture. Whatever changes need to happen, rest assured they will be worthwhile in the long run.

But your job isn’t done yet. Continue checking in to ensure these measures are increasing employee engagement. Some results will be apparent. You might see a more energized and productive workplace, for example.

But, to get real feedback on your progress, continued surveys are the way to go. Check in with your team with an anonymous survey every four to six months and use the results to course-correct if needed.

Being proactive about employee engagement through anonymous surveys is a substantial investment in your company’s future. It may be a difficult process. You may have to face some hard truths, but the process has the potential to transform your business for the better. Simply start by asking your employees for honest feedback — and act on that feedback. 

A home service specialist agency can help you gain better engagement, not just through surveys, but with employee materials such as handbooks, mission statements and more. Their deep expertise in your industry will ensure the surveys and materials they craft address your company’s unique needs.