Insights - Effective Feedback
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| What can we learn from the companies on the Fortune “100 Best Companies to Work For” list? Well, take Cisco, the worldwide leader in IT, networking, and cyber security solutions. In 2019 they achieved No 6 on the list. The stand out learning we have taken from their case and many others on the list is that they give all their employees a voice and act on their ideas and insights. Many types of employee surveys exist to help create a better culture and a more engaged, effective and healthy workforce. A well executed and managed survey can increase retention levels, reduce absenteeism, improve productivity and morale, as well as send a message to your workforce that you value their input and opinion. When functioning in a candidate-short market which many of us are, these benefits cannot be easily dismissed. However, conducting a survey can present a number of challenges for an organisation. They can be time consuming, difficult to administer and tricky to analyse. One option is to outsource this project to a third party. The most obvious benefit to this approach is that it will save you a significant amount of time. It can also be tricky to draw up a survey that covers all those areas you wish to ask your workforce about and it takes skill to draw up questions which get you the true opinions of the respondents; not merely socially acceptable or guarded responses. A third-party can also guarantee anonymity which generates a greater level of trust and honest feedback from your employees and respondents. This can also improve the return rate of your survey. Often the success of a survey is lost when it comes to analysing the findings. A third-party can provide a report tailored to your preferred style. Some organisations prefer to receive a written report whilst others wish the results to be presented to a board or via an infographic. Finally it is really important to act on the findings of the survey, and to do so promptly. Failure to do this can damage employees’ confidence in future surveys, as well as in the organisation’s Leadership Team. A good third-party provider will work with you to focus in on areas requiring attention, helping plan how to approach these, using different methods and tactics to achieve sustained improvements. PACT HR Consultancy Team can support you through every step of surveying your workforce from choosing the most appropriate style and approach, preparing the questions to be asked and timing the roll-out, through to analysing the findings and making recommendations to achieve sustained improvements. For more information about this service, please contact kate.earnshaw@bradford.gov.uk |
