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RULES OF ENGAGEMENT Hybrid working is now the norm in many workplaces and is highly valued by a wide range
of employees. Gary Cattermole, Director of The Survey Initiative, looks at how to measure
whether you’re delivering a workplace that employees feel engaged with and loyal to, even
when not on the premises
Post-pandemic, a lot of people were relieved
to get back to a physical workplace. Vast
numbers of FM employees, clearly, could
not deliver services without attending premises
in person. Many others, however, with more
administrative roles, are reluctant to leave the
virtual o ice.
Research by Microso in conjunction with YouGov,
conducted at the end of 2021, revealed that 51 per
cent of UK workers would consider leaving their
company if hybrid working was removed, while 59
per cent of HR decision makers agreed that hybrid
working has had a positive e ect on the mental
wellbeing of sta . Hybrid working has evidently
become less of a ‘nice to have’ and more of a ‘must
have’.
The YouGov research also revealed that more than
a third of workers who started a new job during the
pandemic had never set foot in the workplace. They
have not met managers or colleagues in person
and may have struggled to absorb their employer’s
workplace culture. Ensuring that more recent
starters and their longer serving colleagues feel like
an integrated team, and enjoy a level playing field,
can be quite a challenge.
For many organisations, an e ective hybrid work
strategy is now a necessity, but making that strategy
feel equitable is also vital. Increasingly, we are being
asked to gauge what employees want from hybrid
working and how they feel it should be managed.
Active communication with your team about
hybrid working is key. This includes gaining
quantifiable feedback. Employees who feel listened
to and consulted are invariably more engaged than
those who don’t.
TAKING THE PULSE
One of the most useful tools is the tailored employee
engagement ‘pulse survey’. The pulse survey is run
at regular intervals, asking a few key questions, in
the form of an anonymous online survey which takes
just a few minutes to complete.
There are some o the shelf solutions, but
these will inevitably contain some irrelevant
or inappropriately phrased questions for your
organisation and, as a result, usually produce poor
results.
The best way to identify the right questions
for a tailored survey is to ask the prospective
respondents. Far too o en, managers think that they
know what the issues are, but their assumptions may
not reflect the true picture. Talking in confidence
to small focus groups, or individuals, depending on
the size and structure of the organisation, is highly
revealing. People are usually very happy to tell us
(rather than their manager) what they think and feel;
even though they can’t quantify how widespread
their issue or opinion may be. This vital intelligence
helps us to cra the survey. In our experience, a
well-tailored survey, based on issues relevant to your
team, will yield response rates of around 84 per cent,
which provides excellent quantitative data on which
to base critical decisions and form plans.
CONSULTATION
Prior consultation also serves another essential
purpose, signalling that the results will be noted
and acted on. We encourage employers to invest
resources in positioning an engagement survey in
advance, to assure employees that its findings will
result in progress. Every level of the organisation
should be surveyed, from front line operatives to
middle managers and senior executives. Naturally,
this may mean that the survey needs to be tailored
di erently for the various groups so that opinions on
issues such as hybrid working, diversity, inclusion
and another current hot topic, allyship, can be
measured in the di erent strata of the organisation.
Using a pulse survey is more reliable than ‘always
on’ surveys, which are o ered by some engagement
analysts. Always on surveys tend to be popular with
some sections of a workforce, but fail to provide rich
data from across the whole organisation. Measuring
engagement at set intervals in a pulse survey also
helps to avoid ‘blips’ from employees who turn
to the always on survey as a form of complaint,
following a particular workplace experience. The
pulse survey can be run every month, quarter,
or other predetermined intervals, depending on
the issues under examination. Regular feedback
from your key stakeholders allows you to monitor
progress, check against KPIs and understand what’s
working and what needs to be tweaked. We can
adapt the survey questions as you make progress or
dig deeper into particular issues.
Tailoring your survey does mean that every
question must be apt and relevant, but not
necessarily that the wording is exclusive to your
organisation. We have access to some industry-wide
data, so you may wish to benchmark your teams
against this, by asking the same question that others
have asked.
Accurate findings from plentiful survey data will
o en go a long way to explain why you are losing (or
retaining) sta and how you might achieve greater
engagement and loyalty.
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