Engagement data is one of the key ways HR leaders get insight into the workforce: direct feedback from employees on what’s working, and what isn’t. But relying on that data to tell the full story is risky.
“I once worked with a division that celebrated some of the highest engagement scores in the company. But when my team peeled back the layers, a different story emerged,” says Rebecca Trotsky, chief people officer at HR case management software firm HR Acuity. “Retaliation concerns were rising. Microaggressions were mentioned consistently. Several complaints involved the same leader. Six months later, engagement scores dropped. Nothing mysterious happened. The surveys simply caught up to the behaviors.”
That’s not to say engagement data should be tossed out entirely. In conversation with StrategicCHRO360, Trotsky gives her take on what really should be tracked instead to truly understand how employee sentiment translates into company performance.
If we stopped measuring engagement tomorrow because it’s a lagging indicator, what’s one leading indicator you would track to prove the people function is driving ROI?
Don’t get me wrong: Tools like the Great Place to Work survey are incredibly valuable. They provide feedback directly from employees and help us focus on where to improve and what to keep doing.
But engagement data has its limitations. It’s a snapshot. A filtered moment in time. It’s what people are willing to say when they know the company is watching.
If I’m sitting at a leadership meeting trying to prove that the people function drives ROI, I’m not leaning on the data that shows how people felt last quarter. I’m leaning on the data that predicts how they’ll act in six months: employee relations (ER) data.
ER data shows you where the culture is headed. Think of it as an early warning system.
If issues go unaddressed, if processes are uneven, if the same leader generates repeated concerns, ER data will show it long before engagement scores shift.
I once worked with a division that celebrated some of the highest engagement scores in the company. But when my team peeled back the layers, a different story emerged. Retaliation concerns were rising. Microaggressions were mentioned consistently. Several complaints involved the same leader. Six months later, engagement scores dropped. Nothing mysterious happened. The surveys simply caught up to the behaviors.
CHROs are often tasked with revealing the underbelly of the organization—the data on burnout or failing leadership. How do you navigate delivering these hard truths when they might threaten your standing or relationship with the C-Suite?
Navigating the underbelly of an organization requires shifting the conversation from feelings to facts. By treating workforce data as a core business KPI, you remove the emotional volatility of the hard truth. So, align with the leadership team on what data is crucial to the business.
Is it performance management process data, high-potential turnover or exit data, speak-up reporting data by location or business unit? Once you have an agreed-upon set of data to track, sharing the results shouldn’t be controversial. This is business data just like any other function’s data and should be treated as such.
I also make it a point to keep the C-Suite in a state of constant visibility and not just when we’re on the verge of a crisis. If you’re looking for smoke every week, you aren’t caught off guard and neither is the executive team.
This is what transforms CHROs from reporters of the past into proactive problem-solvers.
In your view, what is one aspect of HR that AI will never replace?
As long as we employ humans, HR must remain human.
AI is great at synthesizing complex data sets but it cannot navigate the messy, nuanced reality of humans. In the moments that matter—from a stressful medical leave to a workplace conflict—our people don’t want an algorithm. They want an advocate who understands the weight of their situation and can provide the empathy a chatbot simply cannot simulate.
What is one HR practice or a buzzword, such as coffee badging, you hope we leave behind for good?
Can we loudly fire “quiet firing?” It’s a toxic tactic where leaders avoid hard conversations and wait for employees to get frustrated enough to quit. We’ve started to normalize this failure of leadership, and it needs to stop.
Organizations should be transparent in their performance practices, teach leaders to hold people accountable for results and behaviors, do that consistently and respectfully, and help them exit if they don’t deliver in those areas.
