Employee Engagement Cycle: Input

View or download the printable version of the Quick Guide to Employee Engagement Cycle: Input (PDF).

Employee Engagement is an ongoing process that consists of three stages: input, discussion, and action.

Input involves gathering perspectives on the following questions:

• How are we doing when it comes to creating the conditions that foster employee engagement? See the What input do I gather section below.
• What are we doing well?
• Where do we need to do better?

What input do I gather?

Use these questions to gather input on the conditions (engagement drivers) that create engagement and productivity:

How do I gather input?

Input can be gathered in a variety of ways:

• Conversations in 1:1 meetings
• Conversations in faculty or staff meetings
• Individual or team discussions facilitated by someone external to the team (e.g., a consultant)
• Employee Engagement survey. The University of Minnesota has a biennial employee engagement survey. Review survey data from your immediate group or team (if available). If your immediate group or team did not have enough survey data to get a report, ask for and review survey data from the next level up in your organization such as your college, campus, or unit. Ask your team if they believe their responses would be similar or different to those at the next level of the organization and/or the organization as a whole. Why or why not?
• Asking informal questions or facilitating a discussion using the engagement driver questions. In practice, the input and discussion phases might not be so distinct—especially if formal engagement survey data is unavailable. In those cases, input and discussion may happen at the same time. For example:
  • Hand out the list of engagement drivers* and ask team members to spend five minutes identifying which three are the strongest and which three are in most need of attention. Have team members write down their rationale for each one.
  • Have each person share their thoughts.
  • Open up a full team discussion.

*See the Employee Engagement Discussion Questions quick guide for a full list of drivers along with a list of suggested questions by driver.

When gathering input, consider: