Our team is the foundation of our success, so it's important to ensure each member feels engaged. Our employee engagement survey is one way we give each team member a voice. The full survey is conducted at least every two years, and we value the feedback to learn how to support our team members better and how we can improve as a company. This year, 82% of our employees from across the United States and Germany participated in the survey, which provided excellent results and insights.
Defining Employee Engagement
A common misconception of employee engagement is that it is simply how happy our team members are with their job. While this is one aspect of employee engagement, this definition fails to encompass the entirety of how Interstates defines it. We define employee engagement as the extent to which team members feel passionate about their jobs, are committed to the organization and put effort into their work.
Not only is it important to understand what engagement is, but it's also important to know why it matters. Employee engagement affects some of the most vital parts of an organization. If you have high employee engagement, you can expect to see a number of benefits:
- Better customer service
- Increased workplace safety
- Lower employee turnover and absenteeism
- Increased productivity
- Greater brand presence and reputation
- Increased profitability and revenue
By listening to our team members, we can learn how to positively impact their experience and the success of the organization.
Engagement at Interstates
According to our 2020 engagement survey results, 88% of our team members are actively engaged, and 90% reported they would recommend Interstates as a great place to work. As part of the construction industry, safety is a significant part of our culture. 93% of our team members believe we are living out our zero-injury culture.
This is very beneficial information, but we decided to dig deeper to better understand what influences our employee engagement at Interstates. We found that when team members feel they have a purpose in their role, experience a supportive culture, and feel like they truly belong here, they're more likely to be actively engaged. Purpose, culture and inclusion are what we call our influencers - the three areas that are driving engagement. Each one is important to our team members and influences their engagement. Here are a few example questions for each influencer.
- Purpose: 81% agree that their position provides them with a sense of meaning and purpose
- Culture: On average, 86% agree we are living out our core values (dependability, trust, integrity, quality, family)
- Inclusion: 84% of team members feel like they belong at Interstates.
The survey doesn't stop at the results. Leaders have received team reports and recommended next steps based on feedback from their team members. We continue to review this feedback from our team members to improve how we do things and maintain our culture.
We also celebrate our people and the work they do to keep Interstates great. We've maintained our overall engagement score of 88% positive response since our 2018 engagement survey. This was great to see considering all we've experienced in the past few years, including growth in team members, a company restructure and the uncertainty that came with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our team members have shown their resilience and agility. We continue to celebrate the great things happening here at Interstates.
