I watched a couple of episodes of Undercover Boss over the weekend.
I’m sure you’re likely at least familiar with the premise.
Essentially the MD / CEO / Owner goes undercover in their own business.
They put on a disguise so no one recognises them (well, OK, sometimes they do) and pretend to be taking part in a TV show based on having a business idea, with the aim of winning an amount of money to help them get started.
They then spend a day with 4 different employees, who work in different parts of the business, in different locations.
Basically, it’s meant to give them intel, from the front line, and to hear how their employees really find working at Company X.
There’s usually a couple of hard-luck type stories too – the cynic in me thinks this is good ole fashioned tax avoidance but that’s a completely different Blog and I’m no expert anyways!
But it got me to thinking about the numerous ways you can obtain employee views and feedback, without going to such extreme measures…
And I thought why not turn it into a Blog?!
How do you listen to your teams?
What are the mechanisms you can put in place?
Here are my top 10 (in no particular order I hasten to add) with my pros and cons:
Employee Satisfaction Surveys
These can be annual or more frequent Pulse Surveys.
Typically used where you have a large team, to cover multiple areas of what it’s like to work at your Company, to identify themes, highlight problem areas, calculate an Engagement Score (or Employee Engagement Index, or EEI) and to compare results over time.
Many adopt “You Said, We Did”, RAG or Traffic Light Rankings or a “Stop, Start, Continue” to help to drive action plans and deliver improvements.
Pros
Using multi-choice plus free flow text options, you can cover a number of areas. Typically these are anonymous so your people may feel more confident in sharing how they feel – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Tech is moving forwards on these, there are many Apps and Portals now which allow you to set questions over a longer period, and which are bolted on to other things like communications.
Cons
Survey fatigue – no one likes being forced to answer 100 questions!
Walking the Floor
IMHO you can’t beat this – getting out regularly to chat to your front-line teams, very informally and either one-to-one or in small groups. As the Leader of the business, if you do this regularly, you’ll be sure to get an unfiltered honest view of how your people find working at Company X.
Pros
Your people may be more open as you are going to them in their natural working habitat. You are on their territory.
Cons
You may get a skewed view if someone is having a bad day, or if employees have been briefed in advance.
Unannounced Visits
Similar to Walking the Floor, stopping by all of your locations regularly but without scheduling a visit, will ensure you’ll get a reality check. You’re more likely to get a cross selection of the workforce (with scheduled visits it can be easy to hide problem or vocal employees you see!) and again doing this regularly will help you to get a clear picture of what’s working – and what’s not – in each location.
Pros
You get to talk to as many or as few people as you want to, as often as you want to.
Cons
It can be time-consuming, and it can back-fire if your top team are suspicious of your motives. It’s important you take them along with you.
If you have a top team, it’s a good idea to target all of them with doing a specific number each year, so they don’t lose touch with the reality of working in the business.
Clinics
I’ve deliberately not said what clinics. I’m not a fan of calling them HR Clinics, as I think that this devolves ownership. And the truth is, who holds these will differ from business to business.
It’s about the right person / people holding these regularly, promoting them and feeding back in your business.
Who do you trust to ask the right questions, and to really listen?
Holding them at set times helps employees to decide if they want to visit.
Pros
If you pick the right person, these can be gold, and provide really valuable feedback.
Cons
Get it wrong, and it’s a recipe for disaster.
Focus or Listening Groups
I’m meaning that you, as the CEO / MD / Owner holds these, and carefully selects who to invite dependent on what themes you wish to explore each time.
Pros
You get to decide who to invite, you will personally get to talk to a big cross-section of your team face to face, and to ask the questions you’d like to ask.
Cons
You’re the Boss, some employees won’t feel comfortable sharing – but that’s down to you.
Buddies
Tried and tested, assigning Buddies, especially for new starters, will help to figure out what is good and bad about your recruitment and onboarding process. It’s imperative you pick the right people to be a Buddy and you train them, but also you need to create mechanisms for feedback so it’s responsive.
Pros
These can be useful during a new employee’s probation and allow you the opportunity to fix early issues before they fester.
Cons
The success or otherwise of this is reliant on your Buddies fulfilling their role well, and your management taking the time to understand what the issues are, plus also celebrating any successes.
Listening Box
You need to be careful with this approach, and ensure it’s not the only one you adopt. Nevertheless, it can provide useful information. Be sure to appoint someone to regularly check the box (if it’s not you) and again create a way to capture and feedback.
Pros
A relatively inexpensive way of letting your people share how they feel with you.
Cons
You may just get negatives / moaners / complaints about the lack of amenities / pay increases etc. Typically these are anonymous so you won’t for example know what department the feedback is about.
Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
Typically offered in larger businesses but not exclusively. Depending on the size of your business and who your EAP partner is, they usually send usage reports, which can provide some insights into what’s bothering your employees.
Pros
As it is an external partner, with no vested interest, it can be useful, and it also provides support for your people when they are struggling with issues outside of work.
Cons
For smaller businesses, feedback may not be provided for fear of identifying who the employee is, and you may simply get intel on what your employees are struggling with, so it may not be very balanced.
Mystery Shopper / Employee
It is possible to utiliise this, for example in your recruitment and onboarding process plus if you employ folk who deal with Joe Public on the phone, electronically or face to face.
If designed right, and the appropriate training is given to the external “Employees or Shoppers”, it’s amazing what some employees will answer, given the right type of questions.
Typically you’ll engage an external party to do this, but it should give you a no holds barred view of how your people really feel!
Pros
For unbiased, no filtered feedback, these can be a really good way to find out what your people really think.
Cons
It is likely to cost you more than some of the other options, they don’t work as well in smaller businesses, and the partner you engage will need to be big enough so that their people are not easily identifiable by your team!
Cross-team One-to-Ones
These are brilliant if you have a top team that implicitly trusts one another and are all driving for the greater good. It also allows for cross fertilisation of good ideas and can create consistency across teams and departments.
Pros
Used sparingly and well, these can really help to share best practices and build understanding across both your top team, and the wider team community.
Cons
If used in the wrong place or at the wrong time, you could create resentment and silo working across your business. You also need to remember not to over-use them. They also aren’t as good used without other mechanisms.
(NB Enterviews (Entry Interviews) or Stinterviews (Stay Interviews) are another way of getting feedback from your people at various touch-points through their employment journey with you. It’s advisable to have a set of questions so you can capture themes).
Depending on the size of your team, you may choose 1 or more, or all.
In my career to date, I’ve come across all of the above, I’ve even introduced some of them, and have seen them work to varying levels.
The success – or lack of – these initiatives in my experience comes down to three main things:
- who is doing the listening – are they senior, and unbiased enough
- are they actually actively listening, or using their own filters, and
- how is the feedback captured and acted on
If these three key elements aren’t thought about in advance and built into the design and pilot / test phase, it could simply be a wasted tick-box exercise.
And if that’s the case, maybe applying for Undercover Boss isn’t a bad idea after all…!
And one final takeaway – don’t just look for the negatives – find out what is working as well and celebrate those positives!
You’ll notice that I’ve left out one-to-ones, this is because these rely on the integrity of the employee / line manager relationship typically and sometimes the feedback can get skewed or masked.
I’ve also left Whistleblowing out – as if it’s reached that stage then – similarly to raising a grievance – you’ve gone way passed feedback and into the realms of conflict management.
And this is designed to be a positive, helpful Blog!
I’d love to hear some of your positives and negative experiences if you care to share?!
