Employee engagement survey – the results
4th December 2017
The results of the SUEZ recycling and recovery UK employee engagement survey for 2017, U Say, are finally in.
In my last blog I highlighted a phenomenal return rate of 84% across the entire population of our employees and today I am pleased to continue with positive messages.
Our partner in this journey, Best Companies, have confirmed that we have retained our classification as a One to Watch company, which means that we are an organisation that has good levels of engagement. In confirming this overall result, Best Companies described it as a very commendable result for such a return rate in an organisation that is spread over 300 sites with a predominantly manual workforce.
If I am honest, my initial reaction was one tinged with a bit of disappointment, as I hoped we may have improved our classification to a 1* company, which means a company has excellent levels of engagement. But after considering the results further and talking to Best Companies I realise how good this result actually is. This classification has been retained in the context of a very competitive market place, the continual need to change in order to meet our customers’ needs, the ongoing change in our business model, a world-wide rebrand and the roll out of a number of cultural initiatives, such as lean management. We have fundamentally changed what we do and how we do it and still managed to have a great level of employee engagement.
In addition to this backdrop, the return rate from our manual employees rose from 57% in 2015 to 81% this time around. It can be seen across clients that Best Companies work with, that within any organisational structure, senior employees tend to be more engaged, while those further from the “centre” tend to be less engaged. So to significantly increase the return rate of the employee group that tends to be less engaged and to retain our One to Watch classification is great news.
Other positive news in the results include the fact that all levels within the organisational structure are engaged and that of the eight engagement factors in the Best Companies model which are: My Company, Leadership, Personal Growth, My Team, My Manager, Giving Something Back, Wellbeing and Fair Deal, we have seven that are classed as engaging.
So overall, I’m happy with the results as we begin the feedback process to all our employees.
