April 5, 2022
Alta prioritized employee engagement over five years ago, and employees are responding positively. Jim Beré, Chairman & CEO of Alta stated, “Since partnering with Gallup, we’ve experienced results that show our engagement efforts are working. Employees are feeling heard and valued, and there’s nothing more meaningful than that.”
Gallup is a global leadership consultancy firm and the creator of the annual Q12 survey, a 12-question survey that not only measures, but identifies areas to improve employee engagement. Alta began utilizing the Q12 survey in 2017 and has seen progress every year. Amy Bouthilet, Vice President of Global Talent, added, “After an incredible Q12 survey response in 2021, we wondered if that level of success could ever be repeated. It turns out it was!” With the most recent survey administered in January of 2022, Alta surpassed its already impressive employee engagement results from last year in every category across the board, and when we say every category, we mean every category.
Q12 Survey Participation Rate
A record 91% of Alta employees participated in the annual Q12 engagement survey this year – our highest participation ever. Gallup considers anything above 85% in participation to be best practice, and Alta has far exceeded that. All of Alta’s sites individually went up in participation from previous years, which is a lead indicator of a culture of engagement.
Grand Mean
For the first time ever, the grand mean score for each of the 12 survey questions increased. “Further,” Bouthilet explained, “each question scored in the 50-74th percentile amongst Gallup’s overall database of almost 5,000 clients.” The aggregate average over all 12 questions was 4.29. “When 3,000 people score all areas of employee engagement positively, we know we’re doing something right, and that’s exciting,” Bouthilet added.
Engagement Ratio
Last year, Alta surpassed best practice-demonstrated engagement excellence results with a 10:1 ratio of actively engaged employees to actively disengaged. This year, that result was 13:1, only 1 away from reaching what Gallup coins World Class engagement. This achievement speaks to the hard work and laser focus on employee engagement from every individual at Alta.
Even Gallup Is Taking Notice
With such positive results over the last two years, Gallup has taken interest. Gallup asked to create a case study on Alta’s success in 2020, interviewed Amy Bouthilet in fall 2021 for its “Called to Coach” podcast, and most recently asked Alta to be involved in their “Gallup Global Learning Day” in early 2022. On every occasion, Gallup highlighted not only Alta’s impressive survey results, but the various methods in which Alta has taken Gallup’s best practice techniques and made them their own, creating a culture of engagement. “After our initial survey results, we identified an opportunity to provide deeper 1:1 coaching for our employees and leaders, and from there, the CARE coaching model was born. We’ve taught this model to our leaders across the organization, and it’s helped them forge deeper and stronger relationships with their teams. Employees are more empowered than ever to be a catalyst for change at Alta,” Bouthilet explained.
When Alta started its partnership with Gallup, it would have been hard to believe that in just a few years they would see such success; reaching levels of employee engagement that many companies may never achieve. “We’re enjoying every step along this employee engagement journey and can’t wait to see how far we can take this,” said Beré.
