Why should companies survey employees? To my colleagues – like Fleishman-Hillard researcher Jean Shaw – the answer is simple: Employee research identifies the gaps between the perceptions held by a company’s leaders – and the reality experience by its front-line employees. Research is a critical tool to help communications practitioners improve internal communication and drive business strategy.
Jean’s experience has run the gamut across research methods during her six years at FH, from designing and conducting in-person employee focus groups to over-the-phone senior leadership interviews to fill-in-the-circle engagement surveys. She recently shared with me some of her insights on the importance of such research.
Carla Keppler: What experience do you have with employee research?
Jean Shaw: I’ve done in-depth interviews with senior leaders and a lot of employee focus groups to understand how employees like to be communicated with, how they prefer to receive information and how well they understand the culture of the organization – or what they believe that culture to be. I’ve also conducted employee surveys to assess employees’ engagement with the company, gauge employees’ awareness of the company’s business goals and strategies, and whether they understand their individual role in helping the company meet those goals. Lastly, through communication audits, we learn how employees are receiving information and whether or not it’s effective.
CK: What are the most effective ways, in your experience, to conduct employee research?
JS: We always recommend a three-phase approach, starting with senior leaders on in-depth interviews. It’s nice to do that gap analysis to see what leaders think employees know versus what employee focus groups and surveys results tell us they know.
Sometimes we only do focus groups or only do surveys. Ideally we would do both, because you get a helpful mix of qualitative insights that let us more deeply understand issues and quantitative insights to help us measure where things stand today and identify opportunities for improvement.
CK: How do you approach employees and senior leaders differently when conducting research?
JS: For senior leaders, we almost always do separate one-on-one interviews. When you have a lot of senior people in a group, people naturally try to insert their own agenda. When you get them one-on-one, we tend to be able to draw out their honest, candid feedback.
With employees, we use focus groups and get a group dynamic where employees build upon one another’s thoughts, allowing us to trace issues to their root. When there are different business units and groups within an organization that come together in focus groups, you can hear what the differences are. The employee survey is just a good way to make sure everyone feels they can share their opinions.
CK: What is the key to finding quality information within this research? Is it just a matter of incorporating all three research elements?
JS: Sometimes clients want only a survey, but it’s difficult to draft an effective questionnaire if we don’t understand what the challenges and opportunities are. That’s why we often push for more exploratory research up front, especially if the client hasn’t had the opportunity to do prior research on employees’ opinions. That’s where we say, “Let’s do some exploratory research and talk to people to find out what those issues are, and then do the survey to find out how big of an issue it really is.”
CK: How can companies benefit from doing this internal research?
JS: I don’t want to call it a gut check, but I think it’s sometimes surprising for them to find out what frontline employees really think and feel. Especially when they bring in a third party to research, employees are going to be a lot more candid and honest.
Usually, leaders think everyone knows what the business goals are. Even when people are aware of them, we sometimes find they don’t have any idea how to help reach those goals. I think it’s always an eye-opener to leaders on just how important communication is.
CK: What sort of company initiatives or projects should include an employee research element?
JS: With a big cultural change – like a values rollout or a change in business goals – that’s when it’s good to do pre- and post-rollout research. If they launch a big communications effort around educating the employees, they should do something soon after to see how effective their communications were.
Overall, engagement surveys let you track employee attitudes over time. You can use them to see when and why employees are less engaged – and you can correct it before it leads to turnover or worse – employees who remain with the company but actively disengage, so their productivity and quality goes down.
CK: Many companies conduct employee engagement surveys on an annual basis. What should companies do with the results?
JS: Present them back to employees. It’s important that everyone in the organization – from leadership all the way down to entry-level employees – see and understand the results. Especially for leaders and managers, employees will likely have follow-up questions and will be interested in a plan for change.
Leaders don’t have to present everything; for front-line employees, we often suggest picking the top five takeaways and what they’re going to do to address them. If employees see that you acknowledged their feedback and that you’re directly responding to it, they’ll feel more invested in the company.
CK: We encourage leaders and employees to work together to develop a plan of action to improve upon any issues that surface in the research. Is that important?
JS: Yes, definitely. That’s where that annual survey could come in, but it can be as easy as getting teams together to discuss issues and how to address them. We hear over and over again that employees want to be communicated with – not just “at,” that they want it to be transparent, and that they crave communication that’s more like a dialogue – that keeps the lines of communication open.
CK: What new trends are emerging in employee research?
JS: With so many people having on-the-go access to their computer or mobile phone, we’re doing a lot more Web-based surveys and focus groups (using Web cams) than in the past. But I don’t think there’s ever going to be a replacement for face-to-face focus groups.
What are your thoughts on the benefits of employee surveying and research? How has it benefitted your organization? Leave your comments here.