The best organizations know that engaged, high-performing employees drive business success. Engaged employees are more productive, more profitable, more customer-focused, and more likely to stay. And highly engaged workplaces grow faster, adapt quicker, and innovate more. It’s no wonder that Quantum Workplace’s State of Employee Feedback report found that almost 37 percent of organizations said increasing employee engagement was their top people priority this year.

But how can we make improvements on a metric that has been declining the past three years? Organizations working to increase employee engagement have a powerful key at their disposal: manager accountability.

But holding managers accountable is often one of the biggest challenges to spearheading a successful employee engagement initiative. So, what can you do? 

Keep Engagement a High-Level Company Goal 

Make your organization’s engagement level a company objective or key result. When company leaders prove their commitment to prioritizing and improving employee engagement across the organization, managers will likely follow suit.

Make the Case for Manager Follow-Up 

Simply surveying employees annually isn’t enough to increase engagement. If your doctor gave you a list of habits that were hurting your health, but you never made any positive changes, would your health improve? Convince managers that when employees see survey follow-up, they’re more likely to be engaged—and it starts with them. 

Put It in Their Job Description 

Managers are expected to lead, coach, supervise, and manage their teams, so why shouldn’t they be expected to conduct survey follow-up as well? Including survey follow-up in your managers’ formal job descriptions not only creates leverage to hold them accountable, but also communicates that it’s expected upon hire.  

Alleviate Some of the Pressure 

Survey follow-up can feel overwhelming at first, causing managers to bypass the process before it even begins. But, when it comes down to it, taking action on team engagement results is just a conversation. Ask managers to sit down with their employees and say, “Here are our scores; where do you think we can improve, and how should we do it?” 

Simplify the Analytics 

Give managers access to user-friendly, interactive reports that allow them to view their team’s overall engagement level, and more-specific reports broken down by unique demographics. When team leaders can easily view and understand their team’s reports, they’ll be more likely to act on the results. 

Arm Them With Resources to Take Action 

Don’t expect managers to come up with solutions all on their own. Arm them with resources, such as a guide to conducting focus groups or a blog post with tips on increasing engagement. It’s even better if your survey supplier provides an online commitment library that provides countless resources and best practices for acting on results and increasing engagement. 

Encourage Follow-Up With Commitment Plans 

Have team leaders make smart commitment plans that hold themselves accountable. Encourage them to share their plans for improving team engagement and send status updates and key checkpoints. This commitment plan workbook breaks down the commitment planning process into three easy steps and provides seven free templates to help managers focus and commit to improving employee engagement.