Employee Engagement Survey Begins April 2
The annual statewide Employee Engagement Survey begins April 2, and Arizona state employees can once again take the opportunity to provide state leaders insight into how engaged we are in our work.
The Department of Administration has been doing the survey since 2014, and each year, the state has seen slow but steady improvement in the engagement ratio. The ratio is calculated by dividing the total number of “Strongly Agree” survey responses by the sum of “Disagree” and “Strongly Disagree” survey responses. Last year, the statewide engagement ratio was 2.6:1, a slight improvement over 2016 when we scored 2.3:1.
Top performing organizations typically average a ratio of 9.0:1, while average organizations have a ratio of 1.8:1, so our recent scores are encouraging. The news is even better among the agencies that have been fully deploying the Arizona Management System.
For our nine largest agencies, which participated in the first wave of AMS deployment, the average engagement score increased from 3.2 in 2016 to 5.0 in 2017. And among nine midsize agencies that comprised the second wave, their average score more than doubled, from 2.2 to 4.5 year over year.
Of course, we need more data to prove a trend, but it stands to reason that the management system is helping make a difference in how engaged employees feel about their work environment.
AMS helps us see and visually manage for continuously improving performance. As we become more efficient and effective in our work, with freed capacity to do more good, we also should naturally feel more engaged in our mission roles as we assume greater autonomy, mastery and sense of purpose in fulfilling our responsibilities.
Research shows that highly engaged government employees achieve better results, which in turn lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction and greater outcomes of citizen trust and confidence in public institutions.
The survey provides important insight and data that we can use to make state government a better place in which to work. Every employee who wants a voice in making their work life better should complete the survey with candid and sincere feedback. The deadline for completing the survey is Friday, April 13 at 5 p.m.
