According to a new Gallup report, 77% of employees are not engaged at work. That means three out of four are either quietly quitting or already gone in spirit. Gallup’s latest State of the Global Workplace report paints a picture we can’t ignore. “Global employee engagement declined to 21% in 2024, with managers experiencing the largest drop.”
Low engagement costs companies billions, and poor communication is often to blame.
But here’s the kicker:
Most companies think their leaders are listening.
After the survey:
Does any of this sound familiar? Many large companies conduct an annual employee survey, pat themselves on the back for a decent participation rate, and call it a day.
- Companies typically prepare a PowerPoint presentation for leadership to share results.
- There’s usually a follow-up article that loosely links the results with what the company is already doing or planned to do before launching the survey. However, few read the article and those that do likely don’t believe it.
- Some companies may even create a detailed spreadsheet with an “action plan” because they know employees will be looking for it; however, the plan dies on the vine within weeks.
- And often, that’s where it ends… until next year!
Let’s get real:
if your employee listening effort begins and ends with the annual survey, you don’t have an effective listening strategy. You have a box that’s checked each year or two.
The Problem isn’t the Survey; It’s the Mindset
When corporate comms is looped in to support the annual employee survey, we’re often handed a tactical task:
- Build awareness
- Boost participation
- Post the results (when approved)
All fine and good. But if that’s all we’re doing, we’re missing a massive opportunity.
While comms leaders already know this, it takes courage to speak the truth to decisionmakers up the ladder. Because without that, here’s what also happens in too many companies:
- A reorg or layoff happens, and leadership skips the survey because they anticipate “the results will be bad.”
- Or, they conduct the survey, but ask for comms support at the last minute, hoping for a miracle spike in participation, and then enlist help after the survey to spin the results.
- Or worse, they analyze the data but take no visible action that can be attributed to the feedback.
The result?
Employees learn not to trust the process and lose confidence in leadership. And low participation becomes the loudest feedback of all.
Fun Fact:
Flooding an employees’ inbox with a dozen reminders to take the survey isn’t going to increase participation. It contributes to the email overload and noise employees already navigate, conditioning them to ignore the first message, expect reminders, and eventually tune out messages that truly matter.
Survey Fatigue is a Myth. Feedback Fatigue is Real.
Employees don’t get tired of giving feedback. They get tired of giving feedback that goes nowhere.
Professional communicators and leaders are employees too. As an employee, I was happy to participate in surveys frequently IF I had confidence something would improve. Unfortunately, when you ask for the voice of the employee but never show what you did with it, trust erodes. And if trust is low, participation stagnates and eventually drops. Lower engagement follows.
Consider this:
A 2022 McKinsey study found that companies with a robust, continuous listening strategy were four times more likely to retain top talent. And yet, only 16% of organizations reported having a mature employee listening program.
The takeaway?
You can’t listen once a year and expect year-round results.
A Robust Listening Strategy beats a One-Off Event
The annual survey matters, but it’s only one part of a robust listening strategy that earns employee trust and improves outcomes over time.
A robust listening strategy creates an environment where employees can provide leadership with open and radically candid feedback that benefits everyone involved.
According to the Academy to Innovate HR (AIHR), “…organizations get caught up in the analytics, tools, and platforms, which are indeed important. However, it’s crucial to remember the underlying purpose of listening and be critical about why survey-based listening strategies didn’t deliver on their promises, decreasing engagement, retention, and trust.”
AIHR argues that an organization needs six components in place to implement a robust listening strategy. To discover those components, read “Continuous Employee Listening Strategy: Creating Belonging, Safety & Trust.”
Listening throughout the year includes a variety of tactics to capture employee insights and feedback:
- Quick Polls: Establish a location on your site where you ask a single question each week. To increase participation over time, be sure to mix business-related questions with lighter topics that are just for fun.
- Focus Groups: To dig deeper on specific survey results or to capture the nuance that metrics and dashboards can’t deliver, conduct focus groups with frontline employees.
- Quarterly Listening Sessions: Create an employee communications council comprised of a cross-section of employees and gather feedback on specific topics. To include voices that often go unheard, conduct listening sessions with Employee Resource Groups.
- Periodic “Ask Me Anything” sessions: These sessions are particularly helpful following a big announcement or significant change in the organization (e.g., launch of an employee-impacting initiative like restructuring or a reorganization.)
- Exit Interviews & Stay Interviews: Learn from both employee departures and loyalty. I’ve left several companies (always on good terms) over the course of my career, and not a single one conducted an exit interview with me. #MissedOpportunity
- Annual Engagement Survey: A key benchmark, not the finish line. The key here is consistency. Pick a time of the year and stick with it, even if the timing lands right after a layoff.
Big “C” + Little “c” = Listening Across the Enterprise
To increase reach and impact, corporate communicators (Big “C”) should partner with operational communicators (Little “c”).
Here’s how:
- Consult to determine the best timing to conduct surveys and feedback sessions.
- Take a two-prong approach when promoting and launching the employee survey: 1) Send an all- employee email to create general awareness. 2) Have frontline leaders let their teams know they’ve completed the survey and why. Also, they can allocate time for employees to complete it as well.
- Co-lead listening sessions at the department and frontline level. Capture the results (anonymously) and share the results with participants.
- Focus the discussion on what’s getting in the way of creating an exceptional customer experience or getting the work done.
- Use structured templates that tie back to engagement themes and provide flexibility to capture department-specific detail.
Yes, and…
If the cross-functional team determines that feedback should be captured separately, support the decision and agree to share the questions in advance as well as the results with one another. The transparency leads to increased trust and collaboration among communicators across divisions.
This two-level approach creates a bridge:
- Broad-brush insights from enterprise-wide surveys and listening sessions.
- Granular feedback from specific teams and locations.
The result?
When corporate and operational communicators work together, companies conduct listening activities that are more aligned with the flow of work. They communicate results throughout the year and in a channel and format that reaches employees. As a result, employees feel seen and heard. They no longer feel like just as a number on a dashboard. They feel like a voice in the room. With time, they’re more inclined to provide feedback in the future, so participation rates naturally rise.
The Trust-Building Power Move: “You Said… We Did.”
One of the most effective ways to build trust? Don’t just say “We value every voice.” Show employees their voices matter — in a format they can easily see and understand.
Why it matters:
Companies often take action based on employee feedback; however, the time between when the feedback is given, and the action taken is often several months… sometimes longer. Employees have forgotten, or worse, think the company doesn’t do anything with feedback.
The impact:
Earlier in my career, I conducted a “You Said… We Did.” campaign focusing on busy employees in operations, who are known for having an opinion and are highly skeptical that the company listens to them.
The post-campaign results were clear:
- A 9-point jump in employees feeling that they had enough opportunities to give feedback.
- An 18-point increase in feelings the company acted on feedback.
- A 2-point improvement in the feeling their thoughts and opinions are listened to and taken seriously.
- Further, “n/a” and “no answer” appeared to switch to “strongly agree / agree,” an indication that employees moved from apathy to opinion.
Here’s how:
At least quarterly, work with stakeholders to publish a “You Said… We Did.” update. In terms of timing, publish the article a few weeks before you launch a survey.
In the article, provide a simple introduction that explains the purpose, the source of the feedback, and why it matters. Then use a simple side-by-side table that pairs feedback (verbatims are best) with recent decisions / actions taken:
You Said… (Feedback) |
We Did. (Action Taken) |
|
“The new tool is confusing.” |
We added a quick-start guide and offered training. |
|
“We want more visibility into career growth.” |
Managers now include career check-ins in quarterly 1:1s. |
As you can see, the format doesn’t have to be flashy. It just needs to be directly connected, true, visible, and ongoing. “You Said… We Did.” is how you can turn employee feedback into fuel and skeptics into believers.
It’s important to understand this tactic isn’t about perfection. It’s about progress. It’s also not a once-and-done exercise. That approach will likely do more harm than good. It’s something that needs to be consistent and infused into the culture over time.
“You Said… We Did.” can be effective at the enterprise level. To be highly effective, however, it needs to show up more than once on the company’s intranet. The program needs to be a component of your annual communication plan and echoed in leadership town halls and department meetings.
You’ll know the practice is gaining traction when frontline leaders periodically use the approach (i.e., pairing team feedback with local decisions / actions taken) in their weekly huddles. You’ll know the practice is deeply engrained in the culture when employees refer to it.
Rethink Survey Design: Trust is in the Details
Even the design of your annual survey sends a message. Want to increase trust?
Do this:
- Avoid leading with demographic questions: Don’t open the survey by asking about department, job level, race, or gender. That raises suspicion. Instead, move those questions to the end, and make them optional. Also, explain how the data will be used and how anonymity will be protected.
- Shorter is smarter. Employees are busy. Respect their time. Under 15 minutes equals higher participation and more answers.
- Use validated tools. Gallup’s Q12® still leads the way. These 12 core questions assess whether employees feel connected, valued, and supported. Examples include:
- “Do you know what’s expected of you at work?”
- “Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your job?”
- “Does someone at work care about you as a person?”
The research is clear: when these needs are met, engagement follows.
Skipping the Survey Sends a Loud Message
Let’s not sugarcoat this. When leadership skips the annual survey because “we already know morale is low,” here’s what employees think: “They don’t want to know the truth, and they’re not going to do anything to make things better.”
You can’t earn trust by avoiding discomfort. If you want credibility, listen even when it’s hard… especially when it’s hard! Share what you hear. Then act, even in small, symbolic ways.
AL’s Actionable Insights
Here’s how to turn annual survey season into something more meaningful and lasting:
✅ Reframe the ask. Push beyond “support the survey.” Ask, “What’s our listening strategy for the year?”
✅ Partner across functions. Pair Big “C” comms with Little “c” operational comms teams to plan the timing of surveys and co-lead listening sessions.
✅ Make it human. Move demographic questions to the end and make those questions optional. Explain your intent. Honor anonymity.
✅ Close the loop. Use “You Said… We Did.” to turn insights into impact, visually and regularly.
✅ Be transparent and tell the truth. If your company is skipping feedback opportunities, call it out and explain the reasons. Ensure the reason(s) pass the smell test (i.e., will employees believe it?) Trust is built through integrity, not avoidance.
Parting Thoughts
Effective communication plays a foundational role in driving employee engagement. It acts as the bridge that connects employees to organizational goals, leadership, and each other, directly impacting whether employees feel valued, informed, and motivated.
You don’t earn trust with a survey, but you can lose it!
You earn trust with a thoughtful and robust listening strategy that’s executed over time and paired with consistent action that translates feedback into continuous improvement. A strategy that includes listening year-round on multiple levels, speaks the truth, and closes the feedback loop with effective communication that contributes to people feeling seen and heard.
Lead with Light!
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