It’s all very well and good collecting feedback from employees, but the real challenges present when you endeavour to effect change based on survey results.
Australian loyalty program, ‘flybuys’ regularly conducts internal engagement surveysand has managed to successfully translate the feedback into meaningful change. Here, People & Sustainability Business Partner, Bonnie Andrews, explains why her organisation surveys its team members, how they do so, and what they do with the feedback.
What’s the purpose of “taking the pulse” of the team?
Using an employee engagement survey is a great way to understand the engagement of our team members. We care about our team members and want to understand how they’re feeling about flybuys and give them the opportunity to give feedback on their work experience – what’s going well and where there are opportunities for improvement.
There is also a direct correlation between high engagement and high performance. [Research from Gallup found that highly engaged teams show 21% greater profitability, while a Salesforce report revealed that employees who feel their voices are heard are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best.]
We know that as a company we’ll perform better if our people are highly engaged and happy. The survey is critical in developing an action plan that will achieve these mutually beneficial goals.
How are employee engagement surveys distributed at flybuys?
We partner with Culture Amp to run the flybuys annual Engagement Survey. Culture Amp was selected for many reasons, including:
- The ability to keep our team members’ responses 100% confidential
- Easy reporting capability, and
- Built-in action planning tools.
The survey takes approximately 20 minutes to complete. We apply specific reporting rules for the survey, which outline the reporting group minimum for the survey. Reporting is therefore aggregated and the results provide more meaningful and representative feedback based on the demographic, such as function or location.
How does flybuys turn the survey results into meaningful action?
Once we have collected feedback, we analyse the data to find the most important drivers of engagement. We then share these results with everyone at flybuys. Every team then plays a part in looking at where our opportunities are and building a plan for how we can continually improve.
One of the key areas for improvement in our last survey was with regards to feedback (specifically in relation to performance) and recognition. We have since reviewed the way we manage and reward performance and we have implemented a new performance and reward framework that is fit-for-purpose for our business (as we previously followed the Coles performance model until separating from Coles in Oct 2018 and became a standalone business, a Joint Venture of equal share between Wesfarmers and Coles).
Our Talent Manager, Edan Haddock, is currently developing a recognition program that will help enhance employee engagement and drive a strong ‘thank you’ culture.”
What about negative feedback?
Determining how negative feedback will be addressed really depends on the nature of the feedback given. We certainly take all feedback seriously and really strive to face into anything that may require further investigation and additional support measures. (I am certainly not someone that supports sweeping anything under the rug).
It has been nearly 12 months since our last Engagement Survey and we are currently preparing to launch our annual Engagement Survey again shortly.
Do you supplement your annual surveys with pulse surveys?
Yes, we have also run additional pulse-type surveys using Culture Amp and SurveyMonkey to support collecting insights from our team members on certain change initiatives such as office relocation, remote working/flexibility during COVID-19, team effectiveness, and more.
While we don’t want to flood our team members’ inboxes with surveys, we really value their input and want to ensure they have a voice when we are considering making key business decisions that impact our team members. Our teams are very interactive and we don’t want to take away the importance of having face-to-face conversations and driving a culture where continuous feedback is the norm, so we do use face-to-face listening sessions etc. where we can.
We do appreciate that not everyone is comfortable with giving feedback in a ‘public’ setting, which is where pulse surveys become incredibly valuable.
