News Analysis: Temkin Group Study Explains Why Skepticism Mounts About Employee Engagement

Why are a number of organizations embracing the term 'employee experience'? Maybe it's because they aren't achieving tangible results from their employee engagement efforts. A new study helps explain why there's so much skepticism surrounding employee engagement.

A July 2018 study by the highly respected Temkin Group finds that nearly 70% of companies measure employee engagement annually, but only 40% of executives have a plan to act on the results. In addition, only about 20% of the 178 companies surveyed rank in the company’s top two stages of maturity in terms of employee engagement practices, meaning most respondents have no formal system in place.

As part of the study, companies were ranked using Temkin’s Employee Engagement Competency & Maturity (EECM) model, which is available to any organization seeking to benchmark the maturity of its employee engagement practices. A systematic approach to enterprise engagement will be required of organizations that follow any of the 60 standards outlined in ISO Annex SL.
The 2018 Temkin Group Employee Engagement, Competency & Maturity study identifies a key challenge to developing a customer-centric culture: Team leaders of non-customer-facing groups are the least supportive of customer-centric activities. According to researchers, “When we compared companies with above-average employee engagement maturity to those with lower maturity, we found that employee engagement leaders have better customer experience, enjoy better financial results, have more coordinated employee engagement efforts, have more widespread support across employee groups, are more likely to act on employee feedback, and face fewer obstacles than their counterparts with less engaged workforces.”
To access the complete study, as well as the EECM Assessment tool to benchmark your organization’s own employee engagement activities, click here.

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