1. Off the Beaten Path to Employee Engagement
Wendy R. Lee
Office of Workforce Effectiveness and Resources
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
National Institutes of Health
IPMA-MCC Training and Development Forum
May 9, 2017

2. Agenda Workshop charter What is engagement?
Identifying engagement gaps through data analysis
What does employee engagement cost?
Exploring employee engagement strategies

3. Workshop Charter Participate! Allow others to also participate
Be respectful and considerate of others’ ideas
Be respectful and considerate of other organizational cultures and missions

4. Ice-Breaker Questions
What has you jumping out of bed about work every morning?
What has you pushing the snooze button about work every morning?
Paired break-out; regroup with written list, contributed by audience.

5. Measuring Employee Engagement: The Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey

6. Other data gathering mechanisms
Pulse Surveys
Focus groups
Onboarding check-ins
Stay-in interviews
Exit interviews
Comment boxes
Quick polls
Manager-attained
Progress review conversations
1:1s

7. Bucketing Themes Examples:
Q: What benefit would make the organization a great place to work?
A: x% of respondents said they would like the option of teleworking one day a week.
y% of respondents said they would like more on-the-job training
z% of respondents said they would like more senior-leadership and staff interaction opportunities
Q: What work-life balance benefit would make the organization a great place to work?
A: a) telework
b) on-premises child care
c) alternative work schedule
d) lunchtime exercise clubs

8. Out of our control…
Budget
Salary
Policy
Benefits
Physical location
Mandates

9. Trust in management Organization values Career development Autonomy
Within our control…
Influencing our workplace culture
Workforce diversity
Career development
Leadership styles
Trust in management
Organization branding
Societal impact
Skill development
Job value
Autonomy
Customer service
Mission focus
Job challenge
Organization values

10. How much does employee engagement cost?
Which resource(s) can we leverage?
What practices/tools/programs do we have in place that
are under-utilized?
could be refreshed?
could be enhanced?
What are other similar organizations doing?

11. Planning for Employee Engagement Activities
24) In my work unit, differences in performance are recognized in a meaningful way.
FEVS 2016 Gov’t-wide positive response: 34.0%
Non-monetary forms of recognition
Time, energy
Managers, leadership team, HR
The new building’s location is so inconvenient to 495 and The commute is horrible.
$, energy, time(?)
Managers
telework
Flexi-schedules
Energy, time

12. Thank you! Wendy R. Lee leewr@niaid.nih.gov
Challenge yourself to go off the beaten path!
Leading your organization through change