Case Study - Engage

Customer Objective:

A tough few years in a competitive environment meant senior executives and staff were focussed on running the business and achieving shorter term objectives.  Once the tide was turning it was time to focus on the people and connect with them to learn what was happening inside the business - both positive and negative, and what could be done to improve their working lives and in turn productivity.  An Employee Engagement Survey was agreed to utilising the services of Trevor-Roberts Associates.  This survey was for all Queensland staff across 6 locations (both regional and remote) and multiple divisions.  Due to a high number of employees within the business who were shift workers and with no computer access both on-line and paper based surveys were used.

Methodology and approach:

Management committed to ongoing updates and regular communication plus an unbiased and accepting view of everything presented.  The inclusion of stakeholders from senior management, union representatives and staff representatives at regular forums from the outset to explain how the survey works - its features and benefits, the timeframes, through to the presentation of our findings proved highly valuable in reinforcing key messages and understanding around the survey. 

Our approach was to design, collate, analyse and communicate reports and results within agreed timeframes.  Regular communication with staff (which Trevor-Roberts Associates supported customer every step of the way) being one of the key priorities - where the survey was at, what was next and what this meant for the staff and business. 

The principal objective of the employee opinion survey being to gauge and evaluate the opinions of the staff to enable them to contribute to improving the overall culture and performance of the workplace.  Unleash the hidden potential of the organisation.  This important message comes to life with the design of questions to be asked being one of the first key priorities. 

These questions (100 in total including open area for comments, taking 15-20 minutes to complete) were developed around key categories and in line with the organisations objectives and values.  These categories were as follows:

• Management and Leadership
• Rewards
• Training
• Career Development
• Productivity
• The Company
• Customer Focus
• Quality
• Communication
• Engagement
• Absenteeism
• Internal Teamwork

Once categories were agreed, Trevor-Roberts Associates developed questions which were presented to the management team for review and final approval.   The survey was then further designed to ensure both required and desired organisational information was captured eg department, division, location, length of service, employment status etc.  A number of these elements were made mandatory in order to get relevant and meaningful data.  Phone and email contacts were included on the survey for any queries.  It should be noted that the paper based survey reflected the online survey in that is was identical in terms of layout and content.

The organisation had a goal to achieve greater than 80% completion rate, against an industry average of 60%. Knowing that this rate was exceptional within survey terms and therefore regular updates were sent to share the status of completion and encourage those who hadn’t completed the survey to do so.  Once the close off date was reached, and all completed surveys in Trevor-Roberts Associates spent considerable time and analysed the data, produced relevant and meaningful charts and commentary and reported to the management team our results and recommendations.

If employees do not receive speedy and truthful feedback then any trust which might have been gained in providing a survey is lost; If nothing happens as a result of the survey then employees may feel worse about the survey than if their opinion had not been sought in the first place. 

We conducted two-three workshops over a period of three to four weeks with senior management; staff and union representatives and drivers, where we brainstormed the issues raised from the survey and produced an action plan with timelines and persons responsible.  This was then communicated to the business and updated on a monthly basis. 

Outcomes:

• 86% survey completion rate which was highly celebrated throughout the organisation and state. 
• Staff openly said what they thought and management accepted this. 
• The Identification of key areas of concern for employees has:

        o  Assisted managers develop their problem solving skills with employees
        o Assisted management identify critical issues like staff turnover and leadership development
        o Meant employees feel listened to and see action happening from their contribution
        o Provides periodic measure of morale throughout the company
        o Examined employees understanding and support of organisational goals and vision

The Organisation is currently considering a national corporate survey for the rest of the country/business units.