Build an IT Employee Engagement Program

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IT’s performance and stakeholder satisfaction with IT services hinge on IT’s ability to attract and retain top talent and to motivate teams to go above and beyond.
With the growing IT job market, turnover is a serious threat to IT’s ability to deliver seamless value and continuously drive innovation.
Engagement initiatives are often seen as being HR’s responsibility; however, IT leadership needs to take accountability for the retention and productivity of their employees in order to drive business value.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Engagement is a two-way street. Initiatives must address a known need and be actively sought by employees – not handed down from management.
Engagement initiatives are useless unless they target the right issues. It can be tempting to focus on the latest perks and gadgets and ignore difficult issues. Use a systematic approach to uncover and tackle the real problems.
It’s time for IT leadership to step up. IT leaders have a much bigger impact on IT staff engagement than HR ever can. Leverage this power to lead your team to peak performance.

Impact and Result

Info-Tech engagement diagnostics and accompanying tools will help you perform a deep dive into the root causes of disengagement on your team.
The guidance that accompanies Info-Tech’s tools will help you avoid common engagement program pitfalls and empower IT leaders to take charge of their own team’s engagement.

Build an IT Employee Engagement Program Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to discover why engagement is critical to IT performance, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand how our tools will help you construct an effective employee engagement program.

Build an IT Employee Engagement Program – Executive Brief

1. Measure employee engagement

Use Info-Tech's Pulse or Full Engagement Surveys to measure employee engagement.

2. Analyze results and ideate solutions

Understand the drivers of engagement that are important for your team, and involve your staff in brainstorming engagement initiatives.

3. Select and implement engagement initiatives

Select engagement initiatives for maximal impact, create an action plan, and establish open and ongoing communication about engagement with your team.

Member Testimonials

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.

9.2/10

Overall Impact

$5,734

Average $ Saved

Average Days Saved

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Testimonial

Northeast Community College

Guided Implementation

10/10

$12,999

Heather helped advise me on more than just the engagement process. I appreciated her experience in other areas that helped me through a few challe... Read More

City of Bloomington, IN

Guided Implementation

9/10

$12,999

Department of Energy and Public Works

Guided Implementation

7/10

$1,633

If the Employee Engagement Program provides a viable alternative to our Annual Survey, we should be better able to respond to staff sentiment in a ... Read More

Bath Iron Works Corporation

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Jane did an excellent job summarizing our results, providing materials to help with our roll-out of our results, and suggesting improvements for ne... Read More

Canadian Grain Commission

Guided Implementation

9/10

$10,000

IRIS Group

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

Very valuable feedback on team engagement and potential actions to improve.

Stifel

Workshop

9/10

N/A

Jane's facilitation was very well done, and drove towards actionable items for our leadership team in a methodical manner. There were no "bad" par... Read More

New Mexico Department Of Health

Guided Implementation

10/10

$1,239

New Mexico Department Of Health

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Load More Testimonials

Leadership, Culture and Values

Please note: This course will be updated in October 2023.

Increase IT productivity by actively focusing on employee engagement.
This course makes up part of the People & Resources Certificate.

Now Playing:
Academy: Leadership, Culture and Values | Executive Brief

An active membership is required to access Info-Tech Academy

Course Modules: 4
Estimated Completion Time: 2-2.5 hours

Featured Analysts:
Carlene McCubbin, Sr. Research Manager, CIO Practice
James Alexander, SVP of Research and Advisory, CIO Practice

Workshop: Build an IT Employee Engagement Program

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

Module 1: (Preparation) Run Engagement Survey

The Purpose

Select and run your engagement survey prior to the workshop.

Key Benefits Achieved

Receive an in-depth report on your team’s engagement drivers to form the basis of your engagement strategy.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Select engagement survey.

1.2

Identify engagement program goals and metrics.

1.3

Run engagement survey.

Full or Pulse engagement survey report
Engagement survey results interpretation guide

Module 2: Explore Engagement

The Purpose

To understand the current state of engagement and prepare to discuss the drivers behind it with your staff.

Key Benefits Achieved

Empower your leadership team to take charge of their own teams’ engagement.

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Review engagement survey results.

2.2

Finalize focus group agendas.

Customized focus group agendas

2.3

Train managers.

Module 3: Hold Focus Groups

The Purpose

Establish an open dialogue with your staff to understand what would improve their engagement.

Key Benefits Achieved

Employee-generated initiatives have the greatest chance at success.

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Identify priority drivers.

Summary of focus groups results

3.2

Identify engagement KPIs.

Identified engagement initiatives

3.3

Brainstorm engagement initiatives.

3.4

Vote on initiatives within teams.

Identified engagement initiatives

Module 4: Select and Plan Initiatives

The Purpose

Learn the characteristics of successful engagement initiatives and build execution plans for each.

Key Benefits Achieved

Choose initiatives with the greatest impact on your team’s engagement, and ensure you have the necessary resources for success.

Activities

Outputs

4.1

Select engagement initiatives with IT leadership.

4.2

Create initiative project plans.

Engagement project plans

4.3

Present project plans.

4.4

Define implementation checkpoints.

Implementation and communication checkpoints

4.5

Develop communications plan.

4.6

Define strategy for ongoing engagement monitoring.

Further surveys planned (optional)

Module 5: Additional Leadership Training

The Purpose

Select training modules that best address your team’s needs from Info-Tech’s modular leadership training program.

Key Benefits Achieved

Arm your IT leadership team with the key skills of effective leadership, tailored to their existing experience level.

Activities

Outputs

5.1

Adopting an Integrated Leadership Mindset

Develop the skills to lead resourcefully in times of uncertainty

5.2

Optimizing Talent Leadership Practices

Apply leadership behaviors across enterprise initiatives to deploy and develop talent successfully

5.3

Driving Diversity & Inclusion

Develop diversity and inclusion practices that turn the IT function and leaders into transformative champions of inclusion

5.4

Fortifying Internal Stakeholder Relations

Identify elements of effective partnering to maximize the impact of internal interactions

5.5

Engaging Executives and the Board

Understand the major obstacles to CEO and board relevance and uncover the keys to elevating your internal executive profile

5.6

Crafting Your Leadership Brand

Develop a leadership brand statement that demonstrates leadership competency and is aligned with the brand, mission, vision, and goals of the organization

5.7

Crafting and Delivering Compelling Presentations

Identify the components of effective presentations and hone your presentation skills

5.8

Communication & Difficult Conversations

Gain the skills to confront and drive solutions from difficult situations

5.9

Conflict Management

Develop strategies to engage in conflict constructively and reach a resolution that benefits the team or organization

5.10

Performance Management

Learn to identify the root causes of low performance and develop the skills to guide employees through the process of improvement

5.11

Feedback & Coaching

Adopt a behavior-focused coaching model to help managers sustain and apply effective coaching principles

5.12

Creating a Culture of Personal Accountability

Understand how and when to encourage autonomy and how to empower employees to take success into their own hands

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst

Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 7 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Measure employee engagement

Call 1: Review the engagement program offerings and evaluate which one is right for your team.
Call 2: Review the survey setup and your communication strategy around the survey.

Guided Implementation 2: Analyze results and ideate solutions

Call 1: Review engagement survey results with an Info-Tech advisor, identify insights, and prepare to communicate results.
Call 2: Review the customized focus group presentation deck and discuss best practices around ideating solutions.

Guided Implementation 3: Select and implement engagement initiatives

Call 1: Review list of initiatives and refine prioritization criteria.
Call 2: Review selected initiatives and discuss execution plan.
Call 3: Define ongoing communication strategy and key checkpoints, and identify follow-up surveys.

Authors

Jane Kouptsova

Carlene McCubbin

Contributors

Justine Crawforth, Senior Staff Recruiter, Baylor College of Medicine
Kevin Field, CIO
Joe Folkman, President, Zenger Folkman
Tricia Geerts, IT Manager
China Gorman, Managing Director, US, Unleash
Michael Haberman, Senior Consultant, Omega HR Solutions, Inc.
Lance Haun, Practice Director, The Starr Conspiracy
Dave Jackson, Director of IT and CIO, Welch’s
Jackson Jeng, CIO
Chase Labrador, Digital Employee Experience Leader
Celso Mello, CIO, Reliance Home Comfort
Kent Mills, CIO, Wakefield Castrol Canada Inc.
Michael Parke, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior, London Business School
Peter Schroeder, Head of Marketing, Northpass
Susan Taylor, CEO, Generon International
Denise Lee Yohn, Brand Leadership Expert