Build an IT Employee Engagement Program
Measure employee sentiment to drive IT performance.
Contributors
- Justine Crawforth, Senior Staff Recruiter, Baylor College of Medicine
- Kevin Field, CIO
- Joe Folkman, President, Zenger Folkman
- Tricia Geerts, IT Manager
- China Gorman, Managing Director, US, Unleash
- Michael Haberman, Senior Consultant, Omega HR Solutions, Inc.
- Lance Haun, Practice Director, The Starr Conspiracy
- Dave Jackson, Director of IT and CIO, Welch’s
- Jackson Jeng, CIO
- Chase Labrador, Digital Employee Experience Leader
- Celso Mello, CIO, Reliance Home Comfort
- Kent Mills, CIO, Wakefield Castrol Canada Inc.
- Michael Parke, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior, London Business School
- Peter Schroeder, Head of Marketing, Northpass
- Susan Taylor, CEO, Generon International
- Denise Lee Yohn, Brand Leadership Expert
- IT’s performance and stakeholder satisfaction with IT services hinge on IT’s ability to attract and retain top talent and to motivate teams to go above and beyond.
- With the growing IT job market, turnover is a serious threat to IT’s ability to deliver seamless value and continuously drive innovation.
- Engagement initiatives are often seen as being HR’s responsibility; however, IT leadership needs to take accountability for the retention and productivity of their employees in order to drive business value.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Engagement is a two-way street. Initiatives must address a known need and be actively sought by employees – not handed down from management.
- Engagement initiatives are useless unless they target the right issues. It can be tempting to focus on the latest perks and gadgets and ignore difficult issues. Use a systematic approach to uncover and tackle the real problems.
- It’s time for IT leadership to step up. IT leaders have a much bigger impact on IT staff engagement than HR ever can. Leverage this power to lead your team to peak performance.
Impact and Result
- Info-Tech engagement diagnostics and accompanying tools will help you perform a deep dive into the root causes of disengagement on your team.
- The guidance that accompanies Info-Tech’s tools will help you avoid common engagement program pitfalls and empower IT leaders to take charge of their own team’s engagement.
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to discover why engagement is critical to IT performance, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand how our tools will help you construct an effective employee engagement program.
1. Measure employee engagement
Use Info-Tech's Pulse or Full Engagement Surveys to measure employee engagement.
2. Analyze results and ideate solutions
Understand the drivers of engagement that are important for your team, and involve your staff in brainstorming engagement initiatives.
3. Select and implement engagement initiatives
Select engagement initiatives for maximal impact, create an action plan, and establish open and ongoing communication about engagement with your team.
Guided Implementations
This guided implementation is a seven call advisory process.
Guided Implementation #1 - Measure employee engagement
Call #1 - Review the engagement program offerings and evaluate which one is right for your team.
Call #2 - Review the survey setup and your communication strategy around the survey.
Guided Implementation #2 - Analyze results and ideate solutions
Call #1 - Review engagement survey results with an Info-Tech advisor, identify insights, and prepare to communicate results.
Call #2 - Review the customized focus group presentation deck and discuss best practices around ideating solutions.
Guided Implementation #3 - Select and implement engagement initiatives
Call #1 - Review list of initiatives and refine prioritization criteria.
Call #2 - Review selected initiatives and discuss execution plan.
Call #3 - Define ongoing communication strategy and key checkpoints, and identify follow-up surveys.
Info-Tech Academy
Get Info-Tech Certified
Train your staff and develop a world-class IT team.
An active membership is required to access Info-Tech AcademyNew to Info-Tech Academy? Learn more here
Leadership, Culture and Values
Increase IT productivity by actively focusing on employee engagement.
This course makes up part of the People & Resources Certificate.
Course information:
- Title: Leadership, Culture and Values
- Number of Course Modules: 4
- Estimated Time to Complete: 2-2.5 hours
- Featured Analysts:
- Carlene McCubbin, Sr. Research Manager, CIO Practice
- James Alexander, SVP of Research and Advisory, CIO Practice
- Now Playing: Academy: Leadership, Culture and Values | Executive Brief
Book Your Workshop
Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: (Preparation) Run Engagement Survey
The Purpose
- Select and run your engagement survey prior to the workshop.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Receive an in-depth report on your team’s engagement drivers to form the basis of your engagement strategy.
Activities
Outputs
Select engagement survey.
Identify engagement program goals and metrics.
Run engagement survey.
- Full or Pulse engagement survey report
- Engagement survey results interpretation guide
Module 2: Explore Engagement
The Purpose
- To understand the current state of engagement and prepare to discuss the drivers behind it with your staff.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Empower your leadership team to take charge of their own teams’ engagement.
Activities
Outputs
Review engagement survey results.
Finalize focus group agendas.
- Customized focus group agendas
Train managers.
Module 3: Hold Focus Groups
The Purpose
- Establish an open dialogue with your staff to understand what would improve their engagement.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Employee-generated initiatives have the greatest chance at success.
Activities
Outputs
Identify priority drivers.
- Summary of focus groups results
Identify engagement KPIs.
- Identified engagement initiatives
Brainstorm engagement initiatives.
Vote on initiatives within teams.
- Identified engagement initiatives
Module 4: Select and Plan Initiatives
The Purpose
- Learn the characteristics of successful engagement initiatives and build execution plans for each.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Choose initiatives with the greatest impact on your team’s engagement, and ensure you have the necessary resources for success.
Activities
Outputs
Select engagement initiatives with IT leadership.
Create initiative project plans.
- Engagement project plans
Present project plans.
Define implementation checkpoints.
- Implementation and communication checkpoints
Develop communications plan.
Define strategy for ongoing engagement monitoring.
- Further surveys planned (optional)
Module 5: Additional Leadership Training
The Purpose
- Select training modules that best address your team’s needs from Info-Tech’s modular leadership training program.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Arm your IT leadership team with the key skills of effective leadership, tailored to their existing experience level.
Activities
Outputs
Adopting an Integrated Leadership Mindset
- Develop the skills to lead resourcefully in times of uncertainty
Optimizing Talent Leadership Practices
- Apply leadership behaviors across enterprise initiatives to deploy and develop talent successfully
Driving Diversity & Inclusion
- Develop diversity and inclusion practices that turn the IT function and leaders into transformative champions of inclusion
Fortifying Internal Stakeholder Relations
- Identify elements of effective partnering to maximize the impact of internal interactions
Engaging Executives and the Board
- Understand the major obstacles to CEO and board relevance and uncover the keys to elevating your internal executive profile
Crafting Your Leadership Brand
- Develop a leadership brand statement that demonstrates leadership competency and is aligned with the brand, mission, vision, and goals of the organization
Crafting and Delivering Compelling Presentations
- Identify the components of effective presentations and hone your presentation skills
Communication & Difficult Conversations
- Gain the skills to confront and drive solutions from difficult situations
Conflict Management
- Develop strategies to engage in conflict constructively and reach a resolution that benefits the team or organization
Performance Management
- Learn to identify the root causes of low performance and develop the skills to guide employees through the process of improvement
Feedback & Coaching
- Adopt a behavior-focused coaching model to help managers sustain and apply effective coaching principles
Creating a Culture of Personal Accountability
- Understand how and when to encourage autonomy and how to empower employees to take success into their own hands
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this Blueprint, and what our clients have to say.
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
New Mexico Department Of Health
Guided Implementation
10/10
$1,256
5
New Mexico Department Of Health
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
10
Ohio CAT
Guided Implementation
10/10
$2,546
1
MARTA
Guided Implementation
10/10
$63,667
20
UCLA
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
Aecon Construction Group Inc.
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
2
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
Guided Implementation
10/10
$63,667
120
Statistics New Zealand
Guided Implementation
9/10
$63,667
20
